West and Hack
by ZevofB3K
Summary: Herbert West and Cassie Hack actually have a lot in common. Of course, that doesn't mean they wouldn't snipe at each other. AU crossover with the Hack/Slash comic series.
1. Introduction

A/N: I've read the first comic of Hack/Slash with Herbert. While I like it just fine, I wish they would have formed a relationship between him and Cassie rather than her father since I feel the two of them would understand each other in a weird way. So this is AU – nothing to do with the comics.

Herbert West wasn't particularly fond of Cassie Hack. She had had no right to intrude upon his experiment that had been in process at the time, and ever since then he'd been trying to think of ways to get rid of her.

He wasn't even sure what she was trying to prove by knocking on his front door one night and inviting herself and her impossibly large and dull-witted partner in crime inside to question him. She wasn't a cop; women who dressed like her belonged on street corners, and more preferably in the dumpsters dead and forgotten. He was trying to defeat death, yes, but some people were simply better off dead, especially since he and Dan hadn't been back from Peru for a month yet and the experiments weren't going as planned. Interruptions from little girls in short skirts weren't helping to aid the process, seeing as Dan started eyeballing her the minute he opened the door.

After all, Dan had to have been the one to answer the door in the first place, because if Herbert had done it himself, it would have ended right there, but no. Dan being hesitant to assert himself as always, let them in, and before Herbert could complain, she was sitting on the ratty old couch in the living room with a gun strapped to her leg, blatantly peeking out from under the scrap of fabric that only passed as a skirt in the conventional sense.

She didn't question him the way a cop would, either. She was eerily well-informed; she knew things about his time in Switzerland that Herbert hadn't even told Dan, and the way she talked about the incident at Miskatonic Medical School, one would have thought she had actually been there. Her lumpy- headed friend on the other hand, stood there and breathed mist out of what Herbert supposed was a gas mask. If it was meant to intimidate him, it wasn't working, since nothing much could scare a person that had once been strangled to a would-be death by Dr. Hill's intestines.

He had tried to give them just enough information about the so-called zombies wandering around town to satisfy them and send them on their way, but oh no – he'd had to leave the _basement door_ open! He'd had to forget to check the straps on the table before re-animating the subject, and before he knew it, Dan was being thrown into the wall.

At least Hack and her friend were physically adept at disposing of such creatures, that much he could admit. Granted, it had to be because the subject was twice his size, highly reminiscent of that first subject in the med school morgue, and was proceeding to strangle him while sitting on him. Being sat on was nothing short of unpleasant…but still not as bad as intestines.

When the man with the mask cut its head off with a knife that was really larger than physics should have allowed, Hack cocked an eyebrow at him in what he supposed was fascination as she yanked him to his feet while her friend tried to rouse Dan who'd been knocked unconscious. Herbert supposed her look had been because he didn't flinch or even acknowledge the fact that he'd been sprayed heavily with blood, but it didn't make her want to leave, either. It only made her want to explore the basement. Damn. And also check him over by touching him. Like she knew anything about how to treat a strangle victim.

Even though he'd tried to stop her, she'd gone into the basement, shoving him out of the way as if he were an empty cardboard box. He didn't like to admit it, but he wasn't surprised that she was stronger than him. The girl had more muscle than Dan could ever hope for.

As she kicked the door that led into the lab open, he briefly considered grabbing the shovel over in the corner, but decided it wasn't logical. He didn't want a repeat offense and besides, if the big oaf upstairs came down to find her dead, then he'd would have a bigger problem to deal with.

Although oddly enough, the lab didn't shock her. Most women would scream, but she just gasped and snorted out of disgust. She even went so far as to pick up a severed hand that he'd been defrosting to examine it before dropping it back down onto the table. When she turned around, he was morbidly impressed – at both her composure and the icy glare she was giving him with the one visible eye that wasn't covered by a curtain of black hair. It scared him just a little bit, mainly because when he glared at people like that, they didn't make it back upstairs. But of course, he wouldn't let her know that.

The regular argument ensued – it was the same one he'd had with Dan on multiple occasions. In fact, everything that came out of her mouth was on a mental list of standard Moral High Grounds filed away in his brain somewhere. It wasn't even worth repeating because the phrase "You can't just experiment on human body parts" was beginning to see cliché'd, and he was tired of giving the "Don't judge my work" reply.

The abrupt sock to his jaw however was something new. Cassie Hack had a nice right hook for anyone, her gender aside. And what did she have to say for herself after interrupting his tirade with violence? It wasn't what one would think:

"Sorry. Had to find some way to shut you up."

Much to anyone's surprise, Hack let him off with a warning. A warning! Who the hell did she think she was to be letting _him_ off with a warning when she was the one who'd forced her way into his home? And to make things even more laughable, she told him she'd be checking up on him! Was that supposed to scare him? That a morbid little girl with black lips and tight clothes would be coming back to see if he was as she put it, breeding more would-be slashers?

What the hell was a slasher? Not that he cared, but he hadn't even been aware that "slasher" was a real word and not just something coined by these idiots that enjoyed watching that sort of movie. In hindsight, he decided he really should have killed her. If he'd have done that, he would at least been able to think and work in peace without the hindrance of her occasional visits.


	2. Hurt, But No Comfort

A/N: If you couldn't tell, these are told in drabble format. They can relate to each other, but most of them don't .

"Can you _please_ stop moving?" Herbert asked sharply. "In order for me to do this, you must be…"

"Well if you'd stop jabbing me!" Cassie shot back, hissing in pain as he made another pass with the needle. "You're supposed to be sewing the hole up, not making new ones! Jesus, I thought doctors were supposed to do no harm! Of course, this is you we're talking about, so…I guess that whole oath thing doesn't matter."

Herbert simply glared up at her, inwardly admitting that perhaps he was rushing to finish mending the gash in her thigh. She immaturely stuck her tongue out at him from where she was sitting, which naturally had to be on top of his examination table. Of all the hospitals in the state, she had to choose Miskatonic. Or rather, Vlad had chosen it since Cassie wasn't exactly in the shape for walking or driving, but just the same – Miskatonic wasn't the only hospital in the state.

He chose not to retaliate, seeing as he had to focus on treating her whether he wanted to or not. If he didn't know her better, he'd say the frighteningly large man she traveled with had beaten her. Her makeup was a little thicker than usual, in attempts to cover the bruised eyes and split lip, and her arms and legs were covered in superficial cuts as well. Only the one on her thigh had gotten infected, probably due to her attempts to treat it with basic first aid.

"May I ask how this happened?" he asked briskly.

He could feel her looking at him with that incredulous look. "As your doctor, it's important that I know," he added.

She smirked. "It was _insane_," she said, a slight smile spreading over her usually sulky face. "A little while back, me and Vlad ran into this guy called Father Wrath. Creepy, cross-dressing son of a bitch that liked cutting up drunk college girls with a butcher knife. Anyway, we did away with him, but it turns out he had this nephew that went around dressed up just like his uncle. Me and Vlad tracked him down and…"

"So I suspect 'knife-wound' would be an accurate description of the injury?" Herbert asked, cutting her off as he cut the thread and rolled back on the stool he was sitting on to examine his work.

"Hey, you're the one that asked, pal!" Cassie said flatly.

He rolled his eyes and looked her in the eye as he absently reached back and grabbed the gauze, which he promptly began wrapping around the injured area.

"Why are you here?" he asked finally. "Of all the hospitals in the country, I'm sure you could have found one closer to the location of this…slasher you so vehemently believe in."

He finished with the gauze and gave her leg one more unnecessary yank, causing her to see stars and be relieved that he'd given her the tetanus shot earlier. "Well, the closest thing I have to a doctor elsewhere is a vet over in Illinois," said Cassie rolling her eyes and swinging her good leg as he stood up. "And as nice as Lisa is, I figure the less she sees of us, the…"

"You asked for me specifically," said Herbert. "Why not Dan? Or one of the doctors in emergency?"

She jumped down from the table and drew in close to him, returning the glare he was sending her, causing her to feel like she was racking up a collection of specific Herbert West glares in her mind.

"Just checking up on you, Dr. West," she said. "Knowing what I do about you, I'm sure you started a new science project in your basement. I'm just making sure we don't have a repeat performance from last time."

"I'll have you know I don't appreciate people who judge my work, Ms. Hack," said Herbert. "I think it best you leave, now. I'll write you a prescription for painkillers if you like. I suggest you give that muscle some time to heal, as well."

"Screw it, I don't need any of that," said Cassie, turning around and grabbing her jacket off the table. "Just gimme the antibiotic and I'll be fine."

She turned back to him and frowned, grabbing him by the tie, pulling him towards her and kissing him quickly on the cheek before she yanked the prescription note out of his hand. "Be good," she said, before going out through the door and slamming it behind her.

Vlad was already waiting for her outside, sitting on a stool and talking to Dan, who was obviously curious about what had gone on inside the examination room. Vlad looked up at her and gave her a goofy smile, which she returned brightly as he stood up, causing some of the nurses that were already staring something more to gawk at.

"See ya, Dan," she said, smiling at the other doctor, punching him playfully in the arm as she went past. "C'mon Vlad, let's see where we can get us some free Jell-O."

The doors at the end of the hall swung open and the two of them disappeared behind them. Dan simply sipped his coffee, figuring that he'd be hearing Herbert complain later – something he seriously wasn't looking forward to. The nurse at the reception desk tapped him on the shoulder. "Is that girl seeing Dr. West?" she asked.

"Herbert doesn't have a girlfriend," said Dan, smiling. "And yes."


	3. Her Lips Got Hyperactive

A/N I definitely recommend the Kill Hannah song "Hyperactive." That is all.

"This was your brilliant idea?" Herbert asked dryly, sighing and sitting down on a box. "Anger the creature by shooting and thusly run and lock ourselves away with no way out should it manage to break the door down?"

Cassie rolled her eyes, sitting down on the box across from his, dragging Kiss It by the handle with her, her gun dropped in a stairwell during the run, empty and useless anyway.

"In my business…yeah," she said. "It usually doesn't go down like this, but hey – first time for everything. Especially since I got you to protect."

"I can manage on my own, thanks," said Herbert.

"I'm sure you can," said Cassie. "That's why E.V. out there decided to throw you across the room."

"Wouldn't be the first time that's happened to me," Herbert said quietly, looking away from her.

"I'm sure," said Cassie. "You're so little for a guy…makes people just wanna…do stuff, I dunno."

"I beg your pardon?" Herbert asked bitterly.

Cassie groaned. "Never mind!" she snapped back at him.

In hindsight, shooting the seven-foot tall slasher by the name of The Eviscerator probably wasn't the best idea she'd ever had, since slashers that big rarely responded to bullets. Bringing Herbert along with her was probably an even worse idea, seeing as he wasn't much good to her when he basically wore a label stamped "Please hurt me because I'm tiny, aggressive, and annoying" on his forehead.

All right, so she'd had a feeling there was a Herbert West copycat in the area behind The Eviscerator and had decided to give him a call. She hadn't been surprised that that information was all it took to get him to drive up, but The Eviscerator attacked them almost as soon as he'd arrived in Boston.

The next thing she knew, Vlad was distracting the Big E while she was forced to grab Herbert's hand and run (something that surprised her just as much as it had him), finding the storage closet of the office building to be the nearest safe place. However, after a few minutes, the silence started to bother her.

"So what's up with you and Dan?" she asked finally.

"What about him?" Herbert asked coldly.

"You guys are like in your thirties and you're living together," said Cassie. "Are the two of you uh…"

"No," Herbert said quickly, frowning angrily at her.

Cassie had the feeling that if he could melt her with lasers from his eyes, he probably would have. She decided then that conversation probably wasn't the best approach and they should just wait for either Vlad to come and find them or for Eviscerator to– either would be preferable as long as she didn't have to spend extended amounts of time with crazy death-obsessed Dr. West, who had really pretty eyes if one took the time to ignore the fact that he was a prick to notice them.

"What about Georgia?" he asked.

"Huh?" said Cassie.

"You were on your cell phone earlier," he said. "Talking to someone named Georgia. Are you…"

"No," Cassie replied quickly, shaking her head. "No…well, maybe…I dunno. That…that uh…that's complicated."

"In what way?" he asked.

"Why do you care?" she asked defensively.

"Seems practical," said Herbert. "I'd imagine we're going to be here a while."

Cassie sighed. "I met Georgia during a case where girls were disappearing at rock concerts," she said, making eye contact with him for the first time all day. "Turns out the rock band sacrificed them in order to stay immortal or something like that; anyway, both of us got captured and transferred to some Hell kinda place, and we talked. I dunno…maybe I _do _wanna be that way with her. I never spent that much time with her to find out."

"But you think about her," said Herbert.

"Don't you think about Dan?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he said, after a beat of silence. "But not in the way you're implying. Dr. Cain is a good assistant. It would be a shame to lose him."

"Ah," said Cassie, still not quite believing him. "And that's why you bitch every time his girlfriend comes over."

He didn't say anything. "I've been to your house, I've seen how you get!" she chided, smiling.

"You would too, if you had to listen to them all night," said Herbert. "He thinks I don't sleep because I'm still using the re-agent for medicinal purposes. It's because I'll do anything I can to not have to listen to them and their…ritualistic mating."

"Using the re-agent?" said Cassie, drawing a knee up to her chest. "You're a junkie?"

"_Ex_-junkie," Herbert corrected.

"Never would've pegged you for that," she said, whistling. "So…what's it do? D-Does it like speed you up or does it just…"

"It enhances the human body's functions, so basic needs such as eating and sleeping, are eliminated. The problem is, the side-effects are…shall we say irreversible?"

"How?" she asked, now seriously intrigued.

"Why do you care so much? Are you interested in trying it?" he asked dryly.

"No!" said Cassie, leaning forward with her eyes sparkling. "So seriously, what are they?"

Herbert smirked. "Would it shock you to learn that my lungs are burned so badly on the inside that they shouldn't be functioning at all?"

"How'd that happen?" said Cassie.

"Chemical reaction to a gas leak at Miskatonic," said Herbert. "Dan was involved too, but he was too busy running for his life to aid me as I was being strangled to death by semi-sentient intestines. My throat was crushed too, in case you're wondering."

Cassie shook her head. "You didn't die," she said skeptically. "…Y-You didn't, right?"

He sighed and leaned back against the wall. "I don't know," he said in aggravation. "To be honest with you, I don't remember very much of it except for the fact that Dr. Hill's entrails passed out long before I did, but then again, the re-agent overdose I gave him was probably enough to do the job, had I the time to wait."

"Oh man!" said Cassie, wincing. "I hate entrails!"

Herbert nodded. "_Not_ a very pleasant experience, I'll admit" he said.

"I'd guess not, thinking about it gets me all..ugh. Even kinda reminds me of this guy whose twin brother lived inside his stomach," said Cassie. "Fewer details I give you there, the better you'll sleep at night. S-So what? …You can't die?"

"I wouldn't say it's impossible," said Herbert, shrugging. "But I will admit, I seem to be very difficult to kill, yes."

Cassie grinned. "Wanna put that theory to the test?" she asked slyly.

He gave her another skin-melting look, causing her to hold her hands up in defense. "I'm only joking!" she said. "Geez, don't smile or anything. I'd be shocked if you ever did – your sense of humor's all shriveled up and struggling to find the light."

"I have a sense of humor," Herbert protested.

"Yeah," said Cassie. "A sick, twisted, morbidly disturbing one that only kicks in when somebody dies!"

"Oh what?" he asked, that better-than-you tone returning to his voice. "You've never had an instance where you found death amusing?"

"No!" said Cassie, fiddling with the hem of one of her stockings. "Well…not really…I-I mean, me and Vlad might joke around, but it's all a front…to keep ourselves from losing it, you know?"

"Not really, but I can imagine," he replied.

"Like you imagine Dan at night?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"I thought we'd gone over that subject," he said.

'Yeah, but I'm still not that convinced," said Cassie.

"That's your problem," Herbert shot back.

"I never said it wasn't," said Cassie. "How come all the times I've come to see you, I've never seen you with a girlfriend?"

"My personal life is no business of yours!" Herbert shot back.

"Is that because you've never had one?" Cassie asked.

"I'm not having this conversation with you!" said Herbert.

"Is it because chicks think you're weird or is it because you…"Cassie began, knowing that pushing Herbert West's buttons could be both hilarious and slightly dangerous.

"I don't have that kind of time to waste!" he said, screaming loud enough to make her jump a little and hold onto Kiss It just a little tighter, just in case. "Why does everything have to revolve around sex with you people in the first place, and furthermore, I'd like to point out to you that, obviously above all else, my work comes first!"

"But a relationship doesn't necessarily have to be…" Cassie started, but was cut off again.

"I have absolutely no _interest_ in…!"

Thinking quickly, Cassie stood up from her box and mashed her mouth to Herbert's as the sound of footsteps thundering down the hallway outside drew closer. He surprisingly went limp as if he either didn't know what to make of the situation or simply just didn't know what to do, so Cassie just went with it and pushed him up against the wall.

Kissing him wasn't the worst thing she possibly could have done – all awkwardness and inexperience aside, stuck up and prudish Dr. West caught on rather quickly. So much in fact, that she didn't mind it when he started kissing her back, probably without even realizing it. He wasn't an expert at it, but he wasn't drooling on her chin, either. It was way more than she would have given him credit for, anyway.

The footsteps faded away outside and they mutually shoved away from each other, with Cassie feeling a tiny bit smug over the fact that she wasn't the only one slightly breathless as she flicked her hair off her face.

He looked livid once he regained himself, however. "Care to explain?" he asked in that clipped, clinical manner that was starting to grate on her nerves.

"Had to find some way to shut you up," she said, shrugging.

"…Ah," he replied, at a loss for words for once.

She sat down again on the box across from the one he'd been sitting on, and after a while he did the same, still obviously confused.

"I'll tell you one thing, though, West," said Cassie. "Both our sexualities – definitely on the fence."

There was a long beat of silence. "I think you can call me Herbert," he said dryly.


	4. Aim for the Head

Herbert glared at her over his shoulder when he heard her growl. "What is it now?" he asked defensively.

Cassie rolled her eyes and pulled the earmuffs he'd yanked off in irritation up over his ears once again. "Look!" she said firmly, maneuvering behind him and adjusting his aim of the gun. "The target is _down there_, at the end of the range and painted on that giant piece of paper. The way you do it, you're not gonna hit jack shit. Here, try it this way."

He wasn't sure he liked her in such close proximity, or practically embracing him as she held his gun aimed at the target. He knew agreeing to accompany her to the range was an idiotic idea – if he'd had known Dan had arranged it, he wouldn't have come home from work that day.

"I assure you, my time in Peru was quite enough for me to learn how to properly…" Herbert began, but was cut off by a snort from Cassie.

"When you're dealing with zombies, aim for the _head_. Not the wallpaper," she snapped.

"I would very much like for you to let me go now," Herbert replied coldly.

"Not until you show me you know what you're doing," said Cassie.

"And I suppose you know better?" said Herbert.

Cassie smirked at him, even though she could plainly see that he was seething. "Is that a dare or a double dare?" she asked.

Herbert had never wanted to go home more than he ever had in his entire life.


	5. Concerning Dan

She's perfect for him. There's no other way to describe it – I look at her sitting on on the examination table in our basement as if it's her own kitchen counter, swinging her legs as she bites into an apple and I know I'm right – Cassie Hack was made for Herbert West.

While she sits there and chats about what she and Vlad have been up to, I'm sorry Herbert's sewing body parts together and not listening to her. Most of it's disgusting enough to make him laugh. She's a nice girl, even though I think she's just as crazy as Herbert if not more. Her friend Vlad scares me just a little bit too, but he's been visiting Arkham with her less and less since we first met them a few months ago. I think I know why and I can't believe Herbert doesn't. He's an idiot; Cassie's sending out all the signals and he'll never notice them because he's too focused on the re-agent to care about anything other than where our next specimen is coming from.

I don't see what his problem is – yeah, she's a little young, but she makes more sense than he does most of the time. She doesn't give a shit what we do really, as long as other living people don't get hurt. That's a big one – his "work" doesn't bother her. Herbert should take that into serious consideration; she still likes him despite the fact that she frequently implies to him that she'll kill him if she catches him cutting off another person's head with a shovel or something.

And no, that part doesn't creep me out – I can't see Herbert entering into a healthy relationship. _Any_ non-work related relationship would be a good thing for him at this point.

She fits all the criteria – she's cute, she's not an airhead, and this girl I was dating the last time Cassie showed up in Arkham looked her up and down with a look of disgust. It was the same look Meg gave Herbert when they first met. Weird is good – Herbert's weird, it only makes sense that a potential girlfriend be weird. She's a lot more sociable and has a good sense of humor, but I can't deny that she's weird. However, I think the corpse makeup works in her favor since the only other women Herbert thinks enough of to spend any time with are cadavers.

But seriously, I want him to have this. She'd be good for him because she checks up on him where I can't, and her job, whatever it is, is good too, since all her constant traveling gives him time to miss her. He complains when the doorbell rings and I let her in, but I know him too well. I see how his eyes light up when she walks in the door. Plus, she's physically stronger than him. That'll help her too, since in the time I've known him, Dr. Hill and a police lieutenant have been killed. Somehow, I can't see him trying to kill Cass and succeeding.


	6. Visitors Not Welcome

"What are you doing here?" he asked icily, glaring up at her from his rather pitiful position on the ratty old couch.

Cassie tossed her bag onto the floor and plopped down in the seemingly ancient armchair as Dan quietly went into the kitchen. "Well," she said, placing her arms behind her head. "When I read about a local Arkham doctor surviving an entire crypt collapsing in on him and that it happened practically in his own backyard with his roommate as a witness…ideas run wild."

He didn't answer her. He'd stopped having things to say to her long before the incident in the Boston storeroom closet, and he sure as hell wasn't about to explain himself to her. She had no right to be sanctioning him and she had never had such a right - someone whose underwear was visible to him as she sat there with her legs crossed in a masculine fashion and her arms behind her head was far better suited to getting intimately acquainted with a stripper pole.

"…I guess you were right, Herbert West," she continued. "You're really difficult to kill."

"Yes, well, sorry to disappoint you," he replied venomously.

Cassie snorted, leaning forward onto her knees to bring herself closer to him. "You think I wanted you dead?" she asked.

"Isn't that why you keep coming back here even though there's no conceivable reason for you to?" said Herbert.

She laughed ruefully. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I told you – I keep coming back to check up on you. I keep telling you to be good, but you don't seem to wanna listen. That and the fact that I kinda like you, although I don't know why."

She smiled self-consciously and looked down at the floor, deciding she didn't want to know why there were dried bloodstains in the ancient carpet. "You know, this would be so much easier if you weren't acting like such a dick," she said.

He didn't like it when Cassie decided to look vulnerable. When people looked vulnerable, it usually meant that they were trying to say something that they were too afraid to spit out. "…I still think most women are a waste of time," he said finally.

Cassie snorted again – this time almost literally. "Oh" she said, laughing nervously. "Thanks a lot!"

"…But you'd be halfway respectable if I couldn't see up your skirt at the moment," he added.

Cassie looked up at him and realized that he was completely serious, and it only made her laugh harder. It even made him smile a little, and he was glad for once that he and Dan hadn't spoken much since the Gloria incident. If the whole thing hadn't happened, he'd be explaining himself to the other doctor who was probably listening in on the conversation anyway.

"Well," she said, closing her legs. "At least you looked! It boosts your heterosexuality, anyway."

She pushed her hair away from her face. "So how many bones did you break?" she asked.

Herbert shot her an "are you kidding me" look and she realized why – his arm and leg were visibly in casts and he was covered in cuts and bruises. "Oh," she said. "Sorry. S-So…is there anything I can do for you? Since you can't…"

"I'm not an invalid," he pointed out coldly.

"No, but you are a prick," she replied.

"So you seem to tell me every time I see you," said Herbert. "So where's your friend?"

"O-Oh, Vlad?" she asked, fidgeting a little. "He's up in Concord, taking care of a mission. I told him to go on ahead without me."

"And why's that?" Herbert asked, somewhat nervously.

"I'm staying here for a couple days," Cassie said brightly, standing up and stretching. "I'm sick of sleeping in the back of a van and Danny-boy sounds like he could use the extra help around here with you being out of commission and bitchier than usual. Actually, I'm kinda surprised he hasn't killed you yet."

"You're staying?" Herbert asked, looking angry. "Here?"

"Yeah, why?" she asked. "Is that a problem?"

"Yes, if you must know, I'm not comfortable with the idea of having strange people in my house," said Herbert.

"Well, lucky for you I'm not a strange person!" she said, coming around to stand next to the couch. "Well…I guess…not in this house, anyway."

She took advantage of his limited mobility and gently ruffled his hair – something that she could see didn't please him, but he could do nothing about since she would be able to pin him on his back even if he wasn't in dull, yet excruciating pain. "You know, I kind of like you with this no-moving thing," she said, leaning down. "Makes it easier to do this."

When she leaned down placed a kiss on his forehead, Herbert's first inclination was to shove her away, but unfortunately for him, she was standing in front of the useless arm. "It's actually pretty cool that you're hard to kill," she said, pulling away and flipping her hair out of her face. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have a convenient place to crash anymore."

With a quick turn and an unfortunate flipping up of her skirt, exposing her undergarments to him once again, she half-skipped away from him and barreled towards the kitchen in her less-than graceful Cassie Hack manner, shouting "Hey, Dan! Guess what?"

He wondered if she knew that his professional relationship with Dan was all but terminated. On the bright side, perhaps she wouldn't want to be in the middle of their differences. Herbert could only hope.


	7. First Times Pt 1

A/N: I have no idea how I'm going to do this without writing smut, which is entirely OOC for both of them

A/N: I have no idea how I'm going to do this without writing smut, which is entirely OOC for both of them. Any suggestions are appreciated .

How it happened, he would never be sure. In fact, he was fairly certain that if asked, he would blame it on the painkillers he was on for his injuries relating to the cave-in. Because, after about a week of having Cassie Hack stay in his home, he was definitely ready for her to leave, yet the finding the correlation between wanting to get rid of her and sleeping with her was proving to be difficult.

He supposed she was an attractive woman – a bit young for him maybe, but she wasn't altogether unpleasant to look at once one got past the black lips, average at best intellect, and her occasional irrational bloodlust, but he couldn't exactly fault her for the last one since that would border on hypocritical.

But it didn't change anything – in fact, he was more or less disgusted with himself seeing as he was wasting time where the work was concerned as it was; with his injuries he couldn't get down to what was left of the basement, and it seemed Dan and Cassie were doing whatever they could to prevent him from setting up equipment on the kitchen table.

Then again, despite his now former assistant's willingness to stay and help until he recovered, he and Dan still hadn't spoken, leaving him with Cassie as his only other option for conversation. He mainly confined his thoughts to his notes of course, but there were times where talking to her was necessary whether he liked it or not, mainly because she was awful when it came to helping him.

When Cassie Hack had to fight for her life, she was the most graceful woman on Earth. When she had to carry a glass of water across the room on the other hand, she naturally tripped, fell, and landed on him. She would repeat this process a few times as the week progressed, but he didn't mind her clumsiness as badly as he minded her mouth.

Before the Miskatonic Massacre and he and Dan were forced to leave, people used to complain about the noise coming from the basement of 666 Darkmore – they would have a _conniption_ if they'd heard Cassie Hack screaming obscenities first thing in the morning.

Her voice echoed off the walls of the old caretaker's home and reverberated back into his head, making his brain feel as if it were rattling around, and he knew she was making a point to be loud. She didn't like the silence between him and Dan, and tried to make conversation with the both of them separately as to make it seem less awkward, and although he supposed he could relate, he was sorry it didn't make her want to leave sooner. He was even more surprised that the human heart she found while helping Dan clear out the basement didn't send her away. Not that separate body parts bothered her, of course. Cassie Hack was the only woman he knew that laughed when he warned her that a re-animated eyeball might still be loose in the house somewhere.

Yet, with Cassie around, doors slammed causing plaster to fall off the ceiling, proceeding to make Herbert slightly nervous since plaster falling was what left him at the mercy of a slightly disgruntled former assistant and a monster hunter who was a borderline sociopath. Not that Herbert could fault her for that either, since he'd been labeled as such before, although the test results had been inconclusive.

Loud music played around the house occasionally, and he actually had to wonder if it really was music or some ritual to raise that Cthulhu creature everyone used to scribble about in the school textbooks.

There were women's clothes strewn all over the place, some of which he was surprised didn't come with an instruction manual since even Cassie herself picked up a few of the articles and admitted that she'd forgotten how to get into them before proceeding to slingshot them across the room again. Dan used to complain about Herbert leaving coffee mugs all over the place; he never said anything about Cassie's making a mess, although that could be attributed to the fact that Dan didn't sleep at the house anymore.

In fact, most of Dan's things were packed up in boxes waiting to be moved. He had been living with Francesca when he wasn't at the house fulfilling what he thought he was obligated to do, even though Herbert had insisted several times that he could manage on his own. Meanwhile on a more amusing note, Cassie and Francesca had met once when the Peruvian woman came over to pick Dan up one night. Neither woman had been impressed with the other. Herbert still would have found it amusing if he hadn't been so busy hating himself and Cassie interchangeably.

It hadn't started out like anything other than a casual conversation. He'd been up late writing down new theories on electricity and how it correlated to the nature of life, and Dan had already left hours earlier for Francesca's. If Herbert really thought about it, he could probably get away with blaming his actions on an empty water glass.

He'd startled Cassie, who was up cutting an apple at the counter and she'd screamed when he flipped the lights on, and even brandished the knife in his direction before she realized she wasn't being attacked by one of his experiments or whatever else haunted her at the time. Maybe he could blame Cassie herself – seeing as she didn't look like herself at all at two in the morning, with damp hair from the shower, no makeup, and an oversized white t-shirt that would have effectively covered all the parts of her he had the misfortune of seeing on accident during the day, that is, if it weren't as damp as her hair.

After she lowered the weapon, the argument went as follows:

"Holy shit! I didn't know you were still up!" she said. "Why didn't you just call me?"

"Mainly because I'm starting to fear for my life with you around," Herbert retaliated, hobbling over to the counter. "Do you pull knives on everyone you know, Ms. Hack?"

"If they sneak up on me, I do!" said Cassie, yanking the glass out of his hand. "And by the way, I found your runaway eyeball."

He figured this could prove to be mildly interesting. "Oh?" he asked.

She turned and put the glass in the sink, going to the cupboard for a new one. "Yeah," she said. "I went to take a shower and there it was, circling the drain. I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it in an empty pill bottle. Now the fucking thing won't stop staring at me."

She gestured to the table, and sure enough, there it was, swishing itself around and trying hard to see something through the orange plastic. "Yes, well," he said, strangely unable to say anything else as she handed him the now full glass. "…Thank you, I suppose."

"Meh, no problem," said Cassie, going back to her apple and leaning against the counter as she shoved a piece of it in her mouth. "Although, I don't get it. What's the point of bringing separate parts of the body back to life? You're not the type who likes people, so why would you want to help them?"

The only words that filtered through his mind at the question were "oh crap." Of course, he couldn't say that out loud. That would be giving her the upper hand.

He turned to hobble back into the living room. "Don't ask questions that you aren't prepared to hear the answer to," he said darkly.

Instead of leaving it at that, she laughed. The crazy fucking bitch _laughed_ and all Herbert could think of was how much he wanted to shut her up by any means necessary. "Okay, I'm sorry, but you don't honestly believe I'd go for that, do you?" she asked, grinning. "Because an answer like that just means that you don't know, either."

"I don't have time for this," said Herbert, continuing on his way, hoping that she'd get the message, but not Cassie Hack. Never Cassie Hack.

"Of course you don't!" she said, following after him. "You never do! It's a convenient way to get out of things, isn't it?"

"I have work to do, Cassie," Herbert shot back.

"At two in the morning?" she chided.

"No sense in asking me about that, you're the one that just had a shower," he replied, finally making it to the couch and after a bit of shifting around, managed to sit down again.

"What can I say, I'm used to it," said Cassie, shrugging and sitting down in her usual chair. "It's kinda weird for me to just be sitting in one place with no monsters to fight…hey, you don't think you could make me one to practice on, do you?"

Even though she was clearly joking with him, he chose to glare at her anyway. "Cross the line a little?" she asked quickly.

"Slightly," said Herbert, trying to return to his notes.

"What were you gonna do with that thing down there anyway?" Cassie asked, gesturing towards the basement door. "Satisfy some weird sexual urges or…"

"Seeing as we created her for Dan, I'd suggest you ask him," Herbert said coldly. "And I'm not sure – it was an opportunity to try something new. I had no…_intentions_ towards her in any way except…"

"I dunno," said Cassie. "You look just as bummed out as Dan did when I asked him about her. What's the story?"

"Why do you care?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the ledger he was writing in, although the words wouldn't make sense to him in a couple of hours since he was only half-paying attention to them.

Cassie sighed. "It's almost three in the morning, and I'm still awake, talking to the only real mad scientist I know that doesn't wanna kill me or torture me by cutting my toes off or something…come on! Just tell me."

"Torture you by…" he began, somewhat intrigued.

"Never mind that," said Cassie, shaking her head. "The less I think about crazy skinless people with bone saws, the more warm and fuzzy my feelings get, so come on. What's the deal with the living dead girl?"

The mention of a bone saw brought a smirk to his face, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come, since she was now leaning forward on her knees and smiling at him like a skull. "Well, first of all, that heart you found used to belong to Dan's old girlfriend," said Herbert, looking back down at his notes.

"And she probably died because of you, right?" Cassie asked.

"Correct," said Herbert. "But through no fault of my own, seeing as I was busy fighting with what was left of Carl Hill. Anyway, Dan obviously never got over her."

"So you put the heart in another person's body?" Cassie asked.

"More or less seeing as I took only the parts I thought would…hold interest."

"His or yours?" Cassie asked. "Because, from what I saw…"

"Do you want me to finish or not?" Herbert snapped, quickly causing her to stifle. "Anyway, it didn't work out as planned – all hell broke loose and Dan decided he didn't want her, so she tore herself apart. The end."

"And somewhere in there a crypt caved in on you?" Cassie asked.

"Precisely," Herbert replied curtly, looking down at his notes and still hoping that she would get the message.

And for a while, it did seem like she had, but then she slid out of the chair onto her knees, leaning on the table and supporting herself on her arms. "So," she said hesitantly. "What've you been writing about?"

"You wouldn't understand," said Herbert, setting his jaw.

"Try me," said Cassie.

"Doing so would be pointless!" Herbert snapped.

"Why?" Cassie asked with that dangerous amused look on her pale face. "Because I'm not a scientist or just because I'm a girl?"  
He slammed his fists on the table in frustration. "Ms. Hack, as much as I _appreciate_ your assistance in lieu of Dan's, your welcome in this house is growing thin. The longer you sit here and badger me about…" he began.

"Oh, so it's Ms. Hack now?" she asked calmly, grinning. "Geez, Herbert, I thought we got past the whole surnames thing when you put your tongue in my mouth."

"You're the one that initiated it," he pointed out coldly.

"And I don't remember you being all that uncooperative," said Cassie.

"I didn't exactly have a choice!" said Herbert. "You're unusually strong for a human female your size and…"

She laughed. "Oh please!" she said. "It's okay to admit that you liked it, you know. No one's gonna get on your case about it."

"What, you're telling me you did?" he asked skeptically.

"Yeah!" said Cassie, shrugging. "It was just a kiss for crissakes! You know that's what _normal_ people do. For people like us, it's a nice break from reality, believe me.

"So you just go around and spread disease, is that what you're telling me?" Herbert sneered.

"No," said Cassie, shaking her head. "That's not what I mean, but you know…every once in a while…little kiss with someone attractive doesn't hurt."

"I suppose for someone of lower intellect, it doesn't," he replied, noticing an error in one of the chemical formulas he'd scribbled down and hastily erasing it.

"It wouldn't hurt _you_, either," Cassie persisted. "And I'd say that you already know that, since you didn't exactly fake a coma back there."

"I'm not that much older than you, I've had…experiences," he admitted, although it made him even more uncomfortable.

A wide grin spread over her face. "Who was it?" she asked. "Old girlfriend, back in high school or something?"

"Some girl," he said simply, shrugging. "I don't know, I was fifteen; puerile and ridiculously hormonal. I can say it was one of my least intelligent decisions in life, that's for certain."

"As opposed to hacking off people's heads and reanimating their corpses?" Cassie asked dryly.

"Yes," he replied adamantly.

"Wow," said Cassie. "Sounds like she must have hurt you pretty bad."

"I simply found interest in more important things," said Herbert.

"She dumped you?" Cassie asked.

"We were never together," said Herbert.

"So you just slept with her?" said Cassie.

"No," said Herbert.

"You didn't sleep with her?" Cassie asked.

"This is any of your business how?" he replied curtly.

"You're the one that brought it up!" said Cassie.

"And I'm dropping it!" said Herbert. "Goodnight, Ms. Hack."

"I don't feel like going to bed yet," she protested, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Then I suggest you go find something to do elsewhere," he replied, finally coming up with a coherent thought that he could actually write down.

Unfortunately, it didn't deter Cassie. As he went about ignoring her, she only got up and came around to his side, sitting down next to him on the couch. "I don't think you mean that," she said.

He didn't answer her. "I think you're just feeling a little insecure because I got you to admit to things you wouldn't normally talk or think about," she continued. "Plus, you're still kinda stuck, so…"

He didn't know how to react or when to react when she turned his head towards her and placed a quick chaste kiss on his mouth. When she pulled away, she smiled again. "Would you believe that before you, I only kissed girls?" she asked.

"I would like for you to let go of my chin, please," Herbert said adamantly, vaguely aware of the fact that at least this time he didn't have any black lipstick smudges around his mouth to explain to Dan or anyone else.

She did as he wished, leaving him rather surprised that a snide comment hadn't followed. "Why did you do that?" he asked.

Cassie shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "It was there."

"Mm," he replied shortly, returning to his work.

And he again thought that that would be it, but unfortunately it wasn't. "…So you've never had sex, huh?" she asked suddenly.

"What?" he asked, his stomach turning at the very thought.

"It's okay, I'm not judging!" said Cassie, holding her hands up defensively. "I never have either. I just you know, was wondering."

"Again, that is none of your business," said Herbert.

"It explains a lot," said Cassie.

"How hypocritical of you," said Herbert.

"So you admit it!" said Cassie.

"I admit nothing," Herbert persisted. "And if I could effectively get off this couch, I assure you I wouldn't be having this conversation with…"

"Wanna try it?"

"…you, let alone…what?" he asked, her question sinking in.

"Do you wanna try it?" she asked again, staring at him as if she'd asked a simpler question, such as where the salt might be. "Might be a little awkward with your arm and your leg and all, but…"

"No, I don't want to try it!" he boomed, trying to move away from her on the couch, but failing miserably due to the state of his limbs. "What would ever possess you to ask me such a…!"

"Jesus, calm the fuck down!" said Cassie. "We're talking about sex, not missiles here, Doc. And it's fine if you don't want to. I just thought I'd ask."

"I think you should leave now," said Herbert.

"Fine," said Cassie, standing up and stepping away from the couch, seeing that she'd frightened the one person she thought was devoid of most human emotion. "I'll see you in the morning."

She turned to go upstairs, but a nagging question in his brain just _had_ to force itself out of his mouth before the zone of safety could creep in on him. "I thought your sexual orientation was geared towards women," he said.

Cassie turned back around. "I think it is," she said, shrugging. "But, I dunno. I guess I should at least try it with a guy, just to see what it's like. With my job, I'd at least like to get laid once before some slasher decides to kill me."

"And you're asking me?" he asked flatly.

"Sure," she said. "Why not? I'm not insulted, if that's what you think. I'm not in love with you or anything, I just asked. Better to ask a friend than a stranger, you know? Sorry if I freaked you out or anything."

He mulled over the answer in his head a while. On one hand, he was still angry that she would even ask him such a ridiculous thing, seeing as it was obvious that she was being a nuisance to him already. Yet, on the other hand, it was oddly sweet in a juvenile way. Not that he would admit that in this lifetime or the next.

"No," he said finally. "That's…quite all right."

"Cool," said Cassie, smiling. "Now uh…do you need me to get you anything before I head up or are you…"

"I'm fine," he said quickly. "Just…please, go, and give me some time to work."

Most would have been deterred by his curt tone, but it only seemed to amuse Cassie even more. "G'night, Doc," she said, waving him off.

He sighed in exasperation before forcing out what would pass for a "Goodnight, Cassie," which well enough sent her on her way, but only after she turned around once again.

"Oh, and I meant to tell you – Vlad's coming to get me the day after tomorrow," she said. "You're all situated with your crutches and stuff now, and Dan still comes over during the day, so…just thought you'd like to know."

"Noted," he replied distantly, trying to block her out before she disappeared up the stairs again.

What he didn't know was that he'd be vaguely mulling over her proposition for the rest of the night, whether his rational self wanted to or not.


	8. Trying To Resist Temptation

Luckily for Herbert, Cassie's last day in Arkham was relatively uneventful. In fact, when she came downstairs that morning to make her tea, she didn't say a word to him where _that_ subject was concerned. In fact, it might as well have never happened, because all she did was take her seat on the counter top (accidentally flashing him again of course, but after the night before, he began to question how accidental it really was) and mention to him that she'd been having weird dreams about murderous milk and cheese.

When she'd asked if it might have been because of her tea, he was just wondering when the hell he'd started having her favored brand of tea in the cupboard and eventually blamed Dan for buying it since he _knew_ Cassie didn't bring anything like that with her. Apparently, Dan didn't notice that if you fed the stray, it'd keep coming back.

"Are you even listening to me?" her voice rang out dully, causing him to look up from the notebook he was scribbling in.

"Seeing as you're not talking about anything particularly important or interesting, no," said Herbert. "I'm trying to decide if I want to rework the re-agent formula again. We used far too much albumin last time and I'm wondering if it had any effect on why Gloria decided to…"

Cassie snorted, hopping down off the counter with her mug in hand. "I'll leave you to it, then," she said flatly, before coming around the table and leaning down so if he actually looked up, he might have made eye contact with her.

"Look, I don't want you to be all weird about what I said last night. I just said it," said Cassie. "And you're weird enough."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied curtly.

"Oh yeah?" Cassie asked cocking an eyebrow. "Then why won't you look at me?"

Her comment had the desired effect, although he wished he'd have realized it before he actually looked up to glare at her. Cassie got that sly, self-satisfied look on her face as she shifted her weight back and forth a few times. "I'm going out for a while, okay?" she asked. "Anything you want me to pick up?"

"Unless that relates to doing so after yourself, then no," he said, returning to his notes. "Please – go out, enjoy yourself. Just don't summon anything you can't get rid of."

"Speaking from experience?" said Cassie.

"No, but I've heard things," said Herbert. "Now if you please."

He really wished he'd seen the kiss to his forehead coming, especially considering he was already very aware of how demonstrative she could be when she was trying to get someone's sanity to snap. "Be good," she said, pulling away from him and moving out of the kitchen.

He would have given her the same advice, but then again, it was _Arkham_. Nothing ever happened in Arkham unless he himself caused it, and if by some off chance he wasn't the cause of an incident, it usually involved ancient texts and invisible monsters – neither of which he was worried about where Cassie was concerned.

But then it dawned on him, just when the hell did he start worrying about her? It was something he wondered about in the back of his mind all day, especially when Dan came in to find him still sitting at the kitchen table that afternoon. His former assistant gave him a rather stiff hello, and then gave him one of those looks that only made the person receiving it uncomfortable.

"Is there something you'd like to say to me, Daniel?" Herbert asked icily, looking up.

"What's with the herbal tea?" Dan asked, examining the box of fresh teabags sitting on the counter.

"It's Cassie's," said Herbert, looking back down. "She's still here."

Herbert saw the smile playing on Dan's face and he didn't like the context of it. "The two of you get pretty domestic when I'm not around, huh?" Dan asked.

As infuriating as the comment was, even Herbert had to admit that it was better than not talking at all. "It's unfortunately starting to seem that way, yes," he replied reluctantly. "Thankfully, her friend is coming by to pick her up tomorrow."

"That's a shame," said Dan.

"Is it?" said Herbert.

"Yeah," said Dan, grabbing an apple from the counter and tossing it around in his hands. "Aren't you having fun with her?"  
"You _are_ aware that I think of her as a blight on humanity and my life as I know it, correct?" Herbert asked, seriously wishing that getting up out of his chair wasn't as difficult as it was.

"Really?" Dan asked. "Because it looks like you and her are getting kind of…"

"Before you finish that sentence, allow me to inform you that yes, she offered," said Herbert. "I turned her down."

"What? Why?" Dan asked, surprised. "Cassie's a nice girl – kind of young and bordering on criminally insane, but she's…"

Herbert rolled his eyes. "Is this the only reason why you're speaking to me?" he asked. "Because you want to know whether I _scored _or not? Is that it?"

Dan pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "No, I'm just trying to…"

"I don't care what you're trying to do!" said Herbert. "All you're doing is distracting me and angering me further. I understand that our professional relationship is terminated, so if you don't mind, I would…"

"For chrissakes, Herbert! Just because I don't want to work with you anymore doesn't mean I don't want to…"

"What, Dan?" Herbert asked cutting him off again. "Be my friend? I don't know if you noticed, but I don't have the time for friends, as you well know. I…"

"Herbert, if you keep shutting everybody out, you're just going to…"

"HEY!"

Both men looked up, seeing Cassie standing in the doorway of the kitchen holding a bag from the local fast food restaurant, the bag being almost completely transparent due to the grease. Apparently, the argument had gotten loud enough that neither of them had heard the front door slam closed. "Do the two of you wanna talk over each other some more or should I just go out again so the two of you can have sex on the floor? Because I can totally do that."

Dan sighed. "No," he said, getting up from the counter. "What's up, Cassie?"

"I dunno," she said. "I go out to harden an artery and I come back to find the two of you fighting like whiny little bitches. Anyone want some fries? I think I overdid it."

Dan looked at the bag suspiciously as he moved in front of her, smiling slyly. "What did you do to them?" he asked.

Cassie rolled her eyes. "How old do you think I am?" she asked dryly, looking up at him with a good-natured glare.

"Young enough to still be tampering with food," said Dan, nodding. "But I'll take some anyway."

Herbert really didn't understand why Dan always acted like such a puerile frat boy in Cassie's presence, nor did he understand why the two of them got along so well. It was as if their time spent clearing out the damaged almost beyond repair basement was also spent finding ways of irritating him.

"Talk like that makes me wish I did do something to them," said Cassie, reaching in the bag and slamming a full container into his hand. "There!"

Dan laughed lightly, leaving the kitchen and heading upstairs. "I'm gonna go finish cleaning out my room," he called down to them.

"Okay!" Cassie called after him. "Herbert's hoping you choke!"

"I am not," Herbert said quietly, as she put down the fast food bag and cleared away his plate that was still sitting there from breakfast.

"Are you hoping I put something on there that he's allergic to?" she asked.

Normally, he wouldn't have even thought to dignify that question with an answer, but he was still on the painkillers, which had been clouding his judgment far too much for his liking. "…A little," he answered begrudgingly.

"What were you fighting about?" said Cassie.

"Nothing important," said Herbert.

"Which translates to everything that you guys usually fight about?" she asked.

"No," said Herbert.

She looked at him with that devious, knowing look that she always gave him when she thought she had everything figured out and was going to let him think he'd won the question and answer session, when she really knew absolutely nothing at all.

"Okay," she said. "If you're hungry, your lunch is in the bag. If you don't like it, well…get your lazy ass up and make something – it's time to stop depending on other people to keep you alive."

"I do _not_ depend on anyone," said Herbert, rather offended at her comment.

"Oh!" said Cassie, laughing. "Da-aan, help me! I can't move because I'm too busy being the science guy, so go buy the groceries! Cassie! Stop making all that noise! I'm only making excuses to bring you upstairs so you can realize I haven't eaten yet!"

He was really about to verbally blast her then, but she cut him off. "It's okay!" she said brightly. "It's kinda cute when you whine. Just uh…don't get used to me being so nice. Because these past couple weeks – really killing me. I'm gonna go pack up again now, because you have no idea how bad I wanna get out of here and just kill something!"

As she scampered out of the room, he couldn't help but shout after her, "Start with yourself!"

To which of course, she inevitably replied from the other room, "That would be giving you a body to re-animate!"

And of course, Dan had to hear from upstairs and throw his two cents in, screaming, "No re-animating! Not while I'm here!"

"Hey, look, Herbert!" Cassie called after that. "You and Dan are talking again!"

Death had always been something Herbert deeply resented, but at that moment it was seriously starting to look attractive. The next morning couldn't come quick enough, yet there was one tiny problem with that – he still had to get through the rest of the day and that night, which would probably be one of the weirdest nights of his life, his past two encounters with Dr. Hill excluded.

Somehow it had started with Cassie bringing him a dead rat a few minutes after Dan left for the night. Life didn't prepare one for such things – one's friends simply didn't slam gigantic dead rats down on the coffee table out of nowhere. Even for him it was weird, although he knew beggars couldn't be choosers the minute she said, "So? Feeling up to an experiment?"

In truth, he seriously was. All this time sitting around and writing had given him time for new theories and ideas, yet his injuries and absence from the hospital in addition to Dan's new unwillingness to help him acquire specimens all left him at a dead end. He was so bored, he was anxious to try a new experiment, but there was no way he could let Cassie know that.

He poked at the carcass with his pencil and checked it over. "Hmm…relatively fresh," he said in acknowledgement, pleased that she at least understood the gist of what he needed. "Can I ask how you came upon it?"

She laughed, smiling manically at him. "Found it in Dan's closet when I was helping him clean it out," she said.

"I see," said Herbert. "So that was what all the screaming was for earlier."

"Has Dan always been such a baby?" Cassie asked, sitting down on the floor on the opposite side of the table from him.

"Dan has always been rather squeamish, yes," said Herbert. "Would you get my bag for me? It's probably still in the basement, but…"

"If you had been paying attention when I straightened up the living room, you'd have noticed that I put it right by the couch," said Cassie, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Look under the table."

He leaned over and almost too eagerly pulled the black leather case into his lap. Cassie smiled at this for some reason. "And the new re-agent – I managed to mix some while you were out for the day, although I'd appreciate if you didn't ask how. It should be in the refrigerator in the…"

Cassie then pulled out another plastic bottle full of the glowing chemical from her boot, handing it to him. "I do domestic pretty good for a girl who lives out of a van, yeah?" she asked.

"I would imagine that you do," Herbert admitted absently as he pulled a syringe out of the bag. "How long do you think it's been dead? An hour, two hours?"

"I dunno!" said Cassie, shrugging. "I'm not a doctor, I just found the damn thing! What do you think?"

"I'm asking you," Herbert replied clinically as he filled the syringe.

Cassie snorted, looking at it with a cocked eyebrow. "Okay, two hours…no! Maybe…three."

"Three hours?" Herbert asked. "You're sure?"

"Sure!" said Cassie. "Whatever!"

"All right, make a note of it somewhere," he said. "I don't think we need to go over 5 cc's since it's a rat, but…"

"What do you want me to make a note on?" Cassie asked.

He growled in frustration and pushed his notebook over to her, slamming the pencil down to clarify. "Okay, geez! What the fuck do you want me to write?" Cassie asked, picking up the pencil.

"Record the time and the amount of the dose administered. Note the characteristics of the subject. Cause of death is unknown," he said.

"Uh, actually cause of death was a boot flung at high velocity," Cassie said dryly.

"Blunt-force trauma, then," said Herbert.

"Okay, blunt force trauma," said Cassie, slamming the pencil back down. "Now are you gonna inject it?"

"That's the plan," said Herbert, picking it up. "It's far too late to try anything as far as NPE is concerned, and since I don't have the proper equipment in the first place, I'm just going to have to hope my new formula for the re-agent will yield less violent results."

At that, Cassie did stand up and go out into the hall, returning with her favored baseball bat, the words _Kiss It_ still etched into the side. "Yeah, well if things are gonna get violent, I'd prefer to have my violent tool with me," she said, sitting back down on the floor and holding her bat the same way a child might a favored toy.

"Having second thoughts?" Herbert asked, checking his watch and carefully inserting the needle into the back of the rat's head. "Record the time as being 9:04 P.M."

"No, I've just already done the zombie animals schtick," said Cassie, scribbling down what he told her to. "Have you ever been attacked by an undead, rotting boa constrictor?"

"I would appreciate it if you wouldn't use the term 'zombie'," said Herbert, finishing the injection and placing the rat back on the table. "That's not what these are."

"Then what are they?" Cassie asked, leaning in closer to see if any changes had occurred.

"You should be keeping track of time," Herbert replied curtly. "And I wouldn't lean in so close, lest you want to lose something you're fond of."

Cassie shot away from the table just in time for the rat to start convulsing and screaming as if someone were harming it. "Is that normal?" she asked.

"Of course it's normal, what's the time?" he snapped back at her.

"Uh…fifteen seconds maybe?" she asked, only causing him to growl at her for the second time that night.

The rat gave out a horrible screeching sound before leaping off the table at Cassie's chest. "Oh, you son of a bitch!" she griped, ripping it off herself and throwing it across the room.

"Wait, don't do that!" Herbert screamed, trying to stand up only to fall back down onto the couch again without his crutch. "Now it's going to be loose in the house, we can't risk it getting away!"

"That thing can go _far_ away!" said Cassie, standing up and readying _Kiss It_. "This happens every single time?"

"Do you want to sleep tonight?" he asked dryly.

"I probably won't be either way, this is…" she began.  
He quickly shushed her and armed himself with the nearest weapon, which happened to be a coffee mug; not his most creative choice, but he figured it could take out a rat if it were thrown hard enough.

The re-animated rat was not at all pleased. He could hear it tearing around the room, screaming just like Rufus had that night, and Herbert had a surge of nostalgia coupled with the feeling of dread when he realized that Cassie Hack was edgy and holding a bat.

"It's behind the couch," Cassie whispered. "Don't move."

As if he could really do anything else, he thought, as the words _stupid cave-in_ also came to mind. She tried to quietly edge her way around behind him, which was ridiculous, seeing as it was impossible for her to be quiet while she was still wearing heavy boots.

Cassie lunged, the rat screamed demonically and Herbert tried to stand up and fell down again all at once and the sound of scurrying feet followed. "And it's gone in the kitchen!" Cassie said quickly, throwing her free arm up.

"Well! Go after it!" Herbert replied in exasperation.

"What do you want me to do, catch it?" she asked. "Because I guess I could…"

"Just dispose of it!" Herbert said quickly, holding his hands up. "Please!"

"Fine!" she said huffily, stomping towards the kitchen and mumbling various curses to herself.

He looked around uselessly and realized just what kind of trouble he was in. He'd just sent a twenty-year old sociopath wielding a baseball bat off to kill an undead rat with that he was seriously happy wasn't anything bigger. So far, it was safe to say that the experiment was another failure, especially when he heard the startled scream accompanied by tumultuous banging around, squeals of pain, and lots of foul language culminating into one loud "Suck it!" from Cassie and the sound of a buzzer.

A minute later, Cassie came shuffling back into the living room dragging her bat behind her. She had some scratches on her face and chest, which was a little better than he would have expected from her and the pink top she was wearing was flecked with red.

"Where's the…" he began.

"In the microwave!" Cassie interjected, wincing and gesturing behind her with her thumb.

Herbert gave a sigh of relief, glad that she at least lived up to her name and that he wouldn't be waking up in the morning with a homicidal undead rat attacking him.

"…You're cleaning that up before you leave tomorrow," he said as she flopped down on the couch next to him.

"Noted," she said, still breathing a little hard.

He looked over at her and saw that she was smiling lightly – when he and Dan used to experiment, usually Dan would come away looking horrified. Cassie just looked highly amused. After thinking about the event that had just transgressed, he could see why. He couldn't help but laugh, which only made her laugh, too. Dan never laughed at a moment like this, probably because he was still too sore about the whole Rufus incident.

Cassie did, and for a minute he didn't question himself on whether this was really funny or if he was just insane. The details of such hadn't escaped him during the incident with Rufus, despite what Dan might think, but now it didn't seem like something he shouldn't be doing since Cassie was laughing just as hard as he was.

"I am _so_ glad I'm not you," said Cassie, gasping for air.

"Me? I'm not the one that has to scrape the miserable beast's remains off the turntable tomorrow morning," said Herbert.

"Mm," said Cassie, smiling placidly at him as she pushed a piece of hair out of her eyes. "True."

"You're actually agreeing with me?" he asked, a bit surprised.

"I'm too tired to argue with you," said Cassie, turning so she was half sitting, half – laying against the back of the couch.

For him, something seriously had to be wrong. Normally, he didn't look directly at Cassie unless he absolutely had to. Worse yet, part of him was even silently admitting that she was slightly attractive at the moment, scratches and bloodstains aside. He was even starting to get used to the black lips, deciding she looked strange without them.

"Then go to bed," he replied.

"I'm don't want to get up," said Cassie.

Somehow that statement lead to a series of events that he would forever consider an anomaly brought on by proximity and strong pain medication. He didn't know who initiated the kiss that time, nor did he want to know. At the moment the only things he was comfortable knowing had to do with how warm Cassie's skin was, how she didn't taste altogether unpleasant (waxy black lipstick excluded, of course), and that he had to be suffering from a bout of stupidity to be thinking such things. He really should have pulled away, but that was rather difficult to do once Cassie threaded her arms around his neck. That was all right - he could always deny everything later. For some reason, he knew she wouldn't mind.

He would never admit that he welcomed it a little easier this time, or that he may very well have been the one to start it, but he would later plead insanity when asked about it, seeing as Dan would undoubtedly have questions, and Cassie would probably tell Vlad. Yet at the moment, that didn't seem to matter, although in the morning it most certainly would. It usually does when you have an impossibly large gas-mask wearing gorilla leaning over you with an enormous knife and you have his (fully clothed) best friend lying in your lap.


	9. Ignore Little Girl Lost at All Costs

A/N: Just so you know, I had to AU the issue where Cassie kills the kids so it works here. Any complaints about that, well…there's nothing that can be done about it.

Lucky for him, Cassie was good at diverting Vlad's attention. Nothing else had happened that night; they had eventually just fallen asleep on the couch, but Herbert had never realized exactly how protective of Cassie Vlad really was. If he had known, he would have thrown her off him much earlier – not that he wouldn't have anyway, but it _is_ nice to not have to wake up to something as large as Vlad standing over you with a knife when you're still confined to hobbling around the house.

He'd thought then that had been the end of it – Cassie had been so happy to see Vlad, she'd barely paid any attention to him, which was just as well since talking to her was the last thing he wanted to do after the night before and when she finally did leave, he still got stuck having to clean the rat guts out of the microwave.

That along with having to put up with all of Dan's little smirks and offhand comments over the black smudges that seemed to have melted into Herbert's skin made him hope Cassie never came back.

Yet, he wasn't exactly surprised to find her on his doorstep about a month later. He hadn't heard from her at all in that time period, and like always, she had shown up when he had all but forgotten about her.

As usual, she was covered in superficial wounds from some unknown attacker, but for some reason she was shaking as she stood there holding her jacket closed, and for whatever reason was avoiding all eye contact with him.

"C-Can I uh…come in?" she asked quietly.

As usual, a multitude of sarcastic comments came to the surface in his mind but he decided against using any of them. Instead, he nodded and stepped out of the way for her, and she came in almost too quickly. That just got him to wondering even more. "Where's Vlad?" he asked, closing the door.

Cassie just stood there with her back to him, dropping her bag to the floor. "I dunno," she said, feigning casualty. "…He uh…he and I aren't talking right now. I made him drop me off in Montana…I've been bumming rides lately."

Herbert figured this was what Dan would call a "red flag." He'd known there was something weird about Vlad, but he never would have expected this.

"Cassie…would you like to tell me what happened?" he asked, trying to get her to turn her head so he could examine her, only to get his hands slapped away rather violently.

"Don't touch me," she snapped, her real personality surfacing much to his detached relief.

"As much as I would like to acquiesce, I'm still a doctor," he snapped back at her. "Let me examine you."

"You're off duty," she retorted.

"That doesn't matter – if you've been assaulted, I'm required to…" he began.

"It's not what you think!" she shouted. "Vlad didn't do this to me, these kids we met in Montana did…I found journals written by my dad."

"I see," said Herbert. "So they overpowered Vlad?"

"No!" she said desperately, moving away from him and over to the living room. "I wasn't raped, you idiot! These were little kids – feral children hyped up on some super drug my dad made! It was turning them into slashers!"

More plaster fell down from the ceiling and he gave her a look to remind her that screaming in the old house was discouraged. "…Sorry," she said, throwing her arms up. "I know you don't want me here, it's just that I can't stand Vlad giving me the silent treatment, and I called Georgia, I can't stay with her because she doesn't have the space and I could call Chris and Lisa, but…"

"Isn't that a bit ridiculous seeing as you're here now?" he interjected. "I still don't understand _why_ you're here outside of the fact that you're…"

"I had to kill them!" she shouted, causing more dust and plaster to fall from the ceiling and causing him to start having strange feelings he couldn't describe.

He remembered having to scream more or less the same words to Dan after killing Dr. Hill. He hadn't been a neurotic mess like Cassie was at the moment, or at least he hadn't been where the murder was concerned. In a way, he supposed he could relate.

"And?" he asked. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do? Kill these…slashers?"

"Normally, yeah!" said Cassie. "But they…weren't exactly slashers yet."

"So they were just children?" Herbert asked, deciding to take his chances and draw in closer.

"No," she whined. "Or maybe yeah, I dunno! Besides, I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, they were setting the cabin on fire! I had to make a choice!"

"Them or the two of you?" said Herbert.

Cassie shook her head, tears threatening to pour out of her eyes. "No…them or my dad's notes," she said finally.

If that was all that was bothering her, she could whine about it in the basement – that way, she could whine and cry and do whatever else she needed to do as long as it didn't entail doing him bodily harm and he could get back to work. Or even better, she could whine about it upstairs by herself until she was rational enough to stop screaming.

"Oh," was his only reply as he turned back towards the basement stairs. "As understandable as that is, I…"

"Understandable?" she shot back. "How the hell is that understandable? I turned a gun on a bunch of kids!"

"And you have a perfect rationale for it," said Herbert. "Now if you don't mind, you're welcome to stay here or use the phone in the kitchen to call your friends and arrange for a place to stay, but I have something I need to attend to in…"

"Don't walk away from me!" she roared.

"And what else would you like for me to say, hm?" he asked curtly, rounding on her. " 'I'm so sorry, I can't imagine what that's like?' I've been there before, but obviously you're here because Vlad disagreed with your decision and you can't decide if you were right or wrong. I'm not choosing sides -I can understand the choice you made and respect it, but I have…"

"Work to do, right?" she asked bitterly.

He sighed. "You can sort this out on your own," he said, continuing towards the basement. "Cry, beat up a pillow, scream, do whatever you need to, I don't care. Just allow me to warn you that screaming in this house could possibly land you in emergency, which by the way, isn't exactly reliable at Miskatonic seeing as very few people ever come out of it. I'll speak to you when you're less…emotional."

She then let loose a string of barking obscenities about what a bastard he was and how much she hated him, but he didn't really care because he was too busy locking the basement door behind him.


	10. First Times Pt 2

A big problem with Cassie Hack was that he could rarely tell if she was being sarcastic or not, because when she said she was sleeping in his room because the movie she had forced him to watch with her reminded her too much of her real life, he hadn't taken seriously, but of course, around one o'clock in the morning, she was knocking on his door and letting herself in before he could even tell her to go away.

He groaned and turned his back to her. "Go back to your own room, Cassie," he said.

"Relax!" she said quietly, crossing the room. "I'm just gonna go sleep at the desk; go back to sleep."

"That film was idiotic and there's no reason for you to still be thinking about it," said Herbert, turning over and doing his best to ignore her as she sat down on the creaky wooden chair. "Go _back_ to your own room."

"Nope, can't," said Cassie, folding her arms and putting her head down. "Too many weird dreams."

"Not my fault and certainly not my problem," said Herbert. "Out."

"Tch, the more time you spend bitching, the less time you spend sleeping," said Cassie. "Just ignore me – you do it all the time during the day, why should this be any different?"

"Cassie, I don't like having people in my room," he said firmly, sitting up. "So, if you please!"

She picked her head up and gave him that customary look that came along with an inquisition. "Why?" she asked. "Afraid I'm gonna find something you don't want me to?"

"Precisely somewhere along those lines," said Herbert. "Now get out."

Cassie laughed. "What the hell does that mean?" she asked. "First of all, with maybe the exception of Dan, there's not a lot I don't know about you already, at least where all the weird stuff is concerned. Second of all, I'm pretty weird too, so I can't exactly pass judgment over anything weird about you I ever find out, and third of all, stop being so goddamn paranoid. You're like a little rabid squirrel or something for crissakes– just shut up and go back to sleep!"

He sighed irritably. "Do I have to physically make you get out?" he asked.

"Oh, I'd love to see that," said Cassie, smiling, turning in the chair and leaning closer to the edge of the bed.

"Would you?" he asked irritably.

"Yeah," said Cassie. "Considering you can't even see me in this light without your glasses."

"That can change," he said, reaching back to the nightstand, wondering why he was having such a hard time finding them.

"No, it can't," Cassie said quickly, holding them up. "It turns out I'm pretty good at stealing things, too."

She laughed before he could say anything, handing them back to him. "You seriously didn't notice me take them when I came in?" she asked. "I almost tripped over the rug when I came by."

"No," he said, yanking them away from her and sliding them on. "I didn't realize I needed to be so vigilant in my own home."

"Never hurts to be too careful," said Cassie, leaning back in the chair. "Unless of course, you're you, which means you're entirely too careful about everything all the time. You better watch out – stomach cancer is looking for you in your old age."

"You're one to talk," said Herbert. "I've treated your injuries before. With as many contusions as you suffer, you'll be developing cancer sooner than I will. Now go back to your own room and your own bed – there's no experiments running about at this hour and doing what you do in your infinite spare time, I'm surprised you're even bothering me about such a thing. Please…"

"Anyone ever tell you you're extremely verbose?" Cassie asked. "And I'm not leaving. Part of the reason you're bitchier than usual is because you've been lonely since Dan left. So unless you get up and physically move me from this chair like you said you would, I suggest you just go back to sleep, Dr. West."

They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, with Cassie silently daring him to try and move her. Finally, she just got up and sat down on the side of the bed.

"Scoot over," she said, roughly shoving him onto his back. "I knew you wouldn't do anything."

"Lay down and see what happens," he replied as she casually climbed under the sheet and laid down with her back to him.

"What's gonna happen?" Cassie asked skeptically. "You _liiiike_ me."

"I dare you to find evidence to prove your theory," he replied.

"Careful what you ask for, Doc," she said slyly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snapped, scrambling away from her and off the bed, standing up as if something had just burnt him.

"Jesus, calm down!" she said, sitting up. "I was only teasing you! What do you think I'm gonna do, molest you?"

"I think you should go," said Herbert.

"God, you're so weird!" said Cassie, standing up as well. "We've slept on the couch together before, what makes this so different?"

"It just is," he snapped quickly.

"How?" Cassie asked.

"Well, for one thing, I wasn't in my right mind at the time thanks to the medication I was on, but now I am and I…"

"You know what?" Cassie asked, coming around to his side of the bed. "Shut the fuck up."

She didn't waste any time – she put both hands firmly on his shoulders and pushed him backwards into the closet door. Her kiss was angry this time, and shoving her away after she bit his lower lip only seemed to anger her further. "What?" she asked. "If we keep doing this, are you afraid I'm not gonna like you anymore or something stupid like that?"

"I _don't_ like you," Herbert persisted as she shoved him again and put her arms around his neck.

"Oh yeah?" she asked. "Then why are you letting me do this?"

She kissed him again, digging her nails into his back so he'd open his mouth for her. He hadn't realized it before, but she tasted like all of those weird teas she liked to drink and that digging his own nails into the skin of her hip seemed like the perfect way to retaliate.

It at least got her attention. She pulled away from his mouth and smiled at him. "See?" she asked. "Not so bad, huh?"

"This never happened," he insisted.

"Whatever you say," said Cassie, before ducking her head to give his neck the same attention she'd been giving his mouth. "We gotta get this over with at some point in our lives, right?"

The next morning, it would be hard to deny. Especially since Dan still had a key to the house.


	11. Halloween

The only thing Herbert hated more than Cassie Hack at the moment was possibly Halloween. It wasn't so much the holiday itself, since like most holidays, he didn't care one way or another, but Halloween was the one holiday he couldn't avoid. It probably had something to do with the fact that he lived in an old house right in the middle of a cemetery, but either way, he was still locking all the doors and windows and turning out the lights.

It wasn't that he was afraid – if someone broke into his home and tried to do whatever it was they aimed to do, he would act accordingly and make sure it never happened again. Dan had left the baseball bat on the kitchen counter and after a few failed experiments and extended amounts of time with Cassie, Herbert knew he wouldn't miss. He just didn't want anyone bothering him because they did that enough during the daylight hours on the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, and he just wanted to work. It was even kind of liberating without Dan…without Dan to whine, it was amazing what he'd accomplished.

He clicked on a flashlight and aimed to go back down into the basement to start a new batch of re-agent, but unfortunately the phone rang – the phone, which he thought, he'd unplugged already. He thought about it – normally, he'd just let it go. It couldn't be anyone he knew; Dan never called and Herbert paid all his bills, so bill collectors were out of the question.

But for some reason he found himself answering and he'd find something to blame it on later because as soon as he heard the voice on the other end, he was sorry he hadn't just locked himself in the basement.

"Having an unhappy Halloween?" Cassie asked casually on the other end, her voice sounding far away.

'What do you want?" he groaned, heading down the stairs with a tight grip on the portable phone. "It's late."

"It's ten o'clock," said Cassie. "What do you care, you never go to bed anyway."

He didn't have an answer to the comment, as he was too busy trying not to trip himself and fall down the stairs. "So what's up with you?" she asked.

"The neighborhood children are slathering my windows in shaving cream and I'm in the basement, what else is new?" he asked coldly.

He heard her laugh on the other end and he could almost see the smile on her face as she paced around either outside a gas station or a parking lot while she talked. "I'm somewhere in Louisiana," said Cassie. "Heading off to deal with what we think might be real vampires. Just thought I'd give you a call."

"As amusing as that useless information is, I'm busy," said Herbert, flipping the light on, which flickered weakly.

He switched the flashlight off and put it down on the counter as Cassie snorted in his ear. "Don't you wanna know why I called you?" she asked.

"Not especially, but you're probably going to tell me," Herbert replied dryly as he began setting up what he needed.

"I was having bad dreams again!" said Cassie. "You wouldn't believe it – evil milk and cheese everywhere; another fucking lactose intolerant nightmare! Freaked me out, man."

Herbert sighed impatiently and paused in setting up his workspace. "Can I ask what exactly the relevance of this conversation is?" he asked in exasperation.

"Don't freak out or anything," Cassie shot back with subdued sarcasm. "Look, I tried to call Georgia, but she was on her way out to a party. Seeing as I already woke up Vlad and I got him buying us Icees, I figured…what the hell."

"I thought I made it perfectly clear to you that I'm not interested in pursuing a…" he began, but was cut off.

"Fuck, are you still harping about that?" Cassie asked, with Herbert practically hearing the eye roll. "It was one time! What's the big deal about it? You helped me out, I helped you out, the end! At least now we can say we did it if anyone asks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as platonic female friends go, I'd say I'm a pretty awesome friend."

"Since when have we been friends?" Herbert asked.

"Well, I'd like to think sometime before you saw me naked and took my virginity, but if not, I'd say after that," said Cassie.

"There is no such thing as blunt where you're concerned, is there?" Herbert asked dryly.

"I'm only talking to you in a way you'll understand," said Cassie, with Herbert almost hearing the shrug in her voice. "And who knows, maybe we'll do it again some day."

"The odds of that are highly unlikely," said Herbert, lifting a Styrofoam cooler up onto the table.

"So you say, but you said you didn't wanna sleep with me in the first place," said Cassie. "So much for that."

"I didn't want to sleep with you!" said Herbert. "You're the one that enforced it."

"I hate to point it out to you there, West, but if I was such an enforcer, why were you the one on top?" she asked. "You don't think I let that happen intentionally, do you?"

"We're not having this conversation," said Herbert.

"Okay, then how about this?" Cassie asked. "Has Dan finally shut up about it?"

Herbert rolled his eyes. "No," he said irritably. "Working with the man has become an exercise in self-control thanks to you. I'd like to get through one lunch break without having to hear his opinions on how nice parts of your anatomy are."

"Well when you see Dan, kick him in the nuts for me, the fucking pervert," she replied. "But as far as your job goes, isn't it hard on your self-control in the first place? I know you hate the people you work with – you complain about them all the time, so I don't really get what the loss is there."

"Yes, well…I've got intestines to defrost," he said quickly. "Have fun slaughtering whatever it is you find."

Cassie laughed. "And you have fun fighting with the gross intestines that come back to life!" she said brightly. "You know if you manage to keep them under control, I bet you could figure a way to keep those kids away from the house."

"I'll keep it in mind," Herbert replied absently, casually pulling the subject of the conversation out of the cooler and putting them onto the table. "Goodbye, Cassie."

She laughed, but for some reason he was detecting warmth in her voice and he didn't like it. "Be good, Herbert," she said, just before her phone clicked off.

A/N: I've got to warn you - after this, there's going to be some PG-13 to light R-rated filth. Any ideas or objections, feel free to voice them.


	12. The Last Time

Cassie cackled insanely as Herbert turned them over and slammed her back against the wall before biting down hard on her neck, just below the pulse point like she'd asked him to, only not exactly in the same context. The fact she she'd bitten him several times over the past few months was really starting to annoy him. It was bad enough that they were currently in a supply closet at the hospital doing this, but at the moment, he wasn't interested in facing Dan while Cassie was in town.

"Why do we do keeping doing this?" she asked, gasping slightly and arching into him.

"You tell me," he replied clinically as she shoved him away from her and into a shelf on the opposite side of the closet. "You're the one who initiated it."

She all but fell over a roll of paper towels that had somehow ended up on the floor and into his chest, grinning as her hands trailed down to his belt.

"And don't you just love it?" she asked, flashing that cocky grin that made him want to slap her.

"No, actually," he said defiantly, pushing her back against the wall again and pinning her wrists next to her head. "I don't. This is the last time, do you hear me?"

"Yeah, okay," she said sardonically. "We'll see about that."

"Shut up, Hack," he hissed, bringing his face close to hers.

"Make me," she hissed right back, mimicking his tone to the best of her infuriating ability.

There were only so many things he could do – she was unusually volatile that day and her unexpectedly visiting him at work had already put him in a bad mood. They glared at each other, and he continued to glare at Cassie as he moved down her body until his knees hit the floor. Once he was there, it was only a matter of figuring out how to get articles of clothing out of the way.

She didn't speak much after that.


	13. Really, This is the LAST Time

Cassie shivered and rolled over onto Herbert's chest, knowing he was too far gone to seriously be paying attention to anything, which meant she could get away with just about anything. If he were awake, he would have tossed her off him at the first sign of a cuddle. Amusing either way, she had to admit. All his weird hang-ups were part of his charm.

She groaned, still mostly asleep as she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "We should get up," she mumbled, barely audible.

Herbert grunted in reply, still not exactly registering anything other than the sound itself. "Should we?" he asked blearily.

"Doesn't mean I want to," she replied. "It's fucking freezing in here."

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Almost time for me and Vlad to head out," she said. "Killer Santa's ain't gonna dismember themselves."

He made another unintelligible sound that he probably would have berated himself for, were his consciousness present. "This is the first time you've slept in days, isn't it?" she asked.

No answer. Cassie smiled, strangely happy to know that even a potential enemy number one had a vulnerable side when she noticed he was asleep again. "It is, huh?" she asked, grinning.

She lay there for a few minutes, trying to get her nerve up. She hadn't noticed how cold it had been in the house before, but now that she had to get dressed and leave, it was proving to be more difficult than negotiating the sex, which was actually getting easier as of late. She didn't know what his problem was - she had given up girls since sleeping with him and it wasn't like the sex was awful, because they wouldn't still be doing it if it were.

She took a deep breath and finally slid out from under the covers, grabbing her top off the floor and pulling it on. "You sleep," she said quietly, leaning over and kissing him on the forehead. "And _get your heater fixed_."

He stirred in his sleep and turned his head away from her. "…Get off me, Hack," he mumbled.

Cassie laughed and finished getting dressed. Just as she was straightening her skirt and stockings out, he unfortunately woke up, making her think that people who were generally unpleasant to be around should be asleep more often. "This is the last time, you know," he said.

She turned around as she pulled her coat on and stared back into his eyes as he tried to bring them into focus. "If you think so," she replied.


	14. He WISHES This Were the Last Time

The basement floor was cold and uncomfortable – something Herbert had to be reminded of as he rolled off of Cassie and tried to catch his breath. He hadn't intended for things to end up this way, but he was beginning to learn that whatever he planned to do would go the opposite way wherever Cassie was concerned. She, on the other hand, was grinning like the idiot she was.

"So," she said, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm thinking you like the whole idea of a post-slaughter quickie, because _that_ - way better than doing it the normal way."

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"As in did you hurt me or as in did the zombie hurt me?" Cassie asked, thumbing an errant drop of blood off her cheek. "Because…"

"Don't be absurd," he replied curtly.

He sat up from the bloody floor and straightened his clothes, wondering just how much of the blood on his shirt was actually his this time around. "What?" Cassie asked, sitting up and pulling her top back down. "Watching me take out one of your zombie chicks with a big knife got you hot, admit it."

"I'll admit no such thing," said Herbert, standing up and pulling her to her feet.

"Then what was it?" she asked. "Don't tell me you don't get off on blood and gore, because that'd be a lie. You're all about this stuff – even Vlad thinks so."

"You told Vlad?" he asked, as she helped up hoist up the body and place it back on the table.

"I tell Vlad everything," said Cassie, shrugging. "Why? He already figured it out, and…okay, turn around."

"What does that have to do with…"he began.

"Just do it," said Cassie, grabbing his shoulder and turning him roughly.

She reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled something out. Looking around to see what it was, he was relieved that it was only a slightly twitching finger in her hand and not anything larger. "Oh," he said, taking it from her and putting it in his shirt pocket. "Thank-you."

"You're welcome," she said, giving him one of those prim replies that didn't suit her in the least. "Now that that's out of the way."

She hopped up on the table, swinging her legs and tilting her head at him. "Let's do this properly like all normal freaks, hm?"

"Absolutely not," said Herbert. "I already told you I'm done with all of this."

"Really?" Cassie asked, yanking him closer by his tie. "Prove it."

"I don't need to prove anything," said Herbert.

"Yeah?" Cassie asked. "Then why do you look like you want to kiss me so bad?"

Perhaps it was giving her what she wanted, but he most certainly did not kiss her because he wanted to. It was the only effective way to keep her quiet save for bashing her head in, and to be honest, he really didn't have the energy for it.


	15. You Take Care of Me

When Dan used to complain about Meg's outbursts years ago, Herbert had simply brushed them off as trivial female emotional matters and had scorned Dan for even buying into such nonsense.

Now that Herbert was dealing with Cassie's emotional outbursts, he wasn't only sorry he hadn't listened closer to Dan, but he most certainly feared for his life.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she screamed at the top of her lungs, shoving him as hard as she could.

This was definitely one of those days when he shouldn't have answered the door, he decided. He'd known that it was Cassie and Vlad, but really, since when had that ever been beneficial to him or his work in the past? He couldn't think of a single instance, and now he was pretty sure he was dead – Vlad sure as hell wouldn't help him and Cassie looked ready to kill as soon as she was done knocking him around the room. This had Herbert looking around for a viable weapon to defend himself with and unable to come up with anything.

"I was going to tell you!" he defended. "Just as soon as I…"

"No one gave you any permission to go through my things!" she said, grabbing him by his shirt and slamming him against the wall.

Tears were running down her face and slathering trails of her makeup on her cheeks. Most certainly not one of her attractive days, he thought. "When did you do it?" she demanded. "Did you just wait until I was asleep or did you…"

"It doesn't matter when I did it, but I'll have you know that your father's research on the nature of…!" he began, only find his head bashed uncomfortably against the wall.

"I never asked you to look at my father's notes!" said Cassie. "How long have you been in contact with him?"

Vlad stood there like a lump, probably waiting for Cassie to give the okay so he could carve Herbert up with the oversized set of meat cleavers he always seemed to have on hand. Herbert figured he should probably answer honestly, seeing as Cassie would kill him before anything else did. "…Two months," he choked out. "I've been in contact with your father for two months."

The shock at least allowed her drop him and back away. He massaged at the part of his neck she'd been pressing down on her with elbow and pushed his glasses up. "If it's any consolation, I've never met him in person and I've only spoken to him on a handful of occassions. All I know is that he's somewhere in New Mexico and that he lives alone…we've been comparing notes is all. Besides, I've seen you what? Once in that length of time?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Cassie asked, sobbing. "He's my father and you know I want to see him! Why didn't you just tell me?"

"And I was going to!" said Herbert. "Just as soon as I could…"

"What?" Cassie cut in. "Pick his brain and come up with some new way to bring people back from the dead? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"You're being overemotion…" Herbert began.

"I've been sleeping with you for almost a year!" said Cassie, shoving him again. "Don't tell me I'm being overemotional! You don't have any fucking emotions of any kind, you're…God, I fucking hate you!"

Taking the pounding was a lot easier than he thought it'd be, seeing as crying at least weakened her somewhat, but it was the crying part that was surprisingly difficult. Cassie Hack wasn't a crier; it was part of what he found so respectable about her. She was so unlike all the Megs and Francescas of the world, and that made her at least interesting to have around, but seeing her like this now made him feel weird and there was no better word for it.

Vlad took a step forward, either to help Cassie kill him or simply comfort her, but he stopped when the foul language stopped and the sobbing started. Herbert didn't know exactly what to do when she leaned limply into him, but seeing as Vlad was right there, he knew he'd better not mess up.

He followed her as she slumped to the floor and knelt there, holding her as loosely as he could and even looked up at Vlad in hopes the big ape would just take her, but no such luck. Vlad knelt down and put a hand on her back, but that was about it. Herbert was on his own and he had a feeling Vlad wanted it that way.

Nothing to do but sit there and hold her until she came to her senses.

A/N: So yeah, I got my Hack/Slash #15 - #17 today and they're AWESOME. I loved the scenes with them together and thought it was sweet how he gave her the last re-agent syringe^_^. Nothing like this fic of course, but it just made me ship this pairing even harder. Oh dear…


	16. And I'll Try to Forgive You

In a way, he was glad her back was to him – at least this way he knew she was truly asleep instead of possibly waiting for him to open the door so she could jump him with whatever sharp object she had in her boot that day.

Or at least he had a better chance of her being asleep – she was curled up on the bed and wrapped up in that absurd purple fleece blanket he'd seen many times in the back of her van. Her boots were on the floor, but he couldn't see any weapons in the laces. That in itself was suspect.

"Are you awake?" he asked quietly, deciding not to venture further until he was sure exactly how mad at him she was.

She gave a reply along the lines of a whimper or a grunt and picked her head up briefly to look at him, squinting from the light pouring in from the hall. She must have been pretty mad; her face had been washed recently, but there was some residue on her cheeks leftover from running makeup.

"I thought I told Vlad to kill you if you tried to come up here," she said groggily, putting her head back down and pulling her blanket tighter.

Her reply had been casual, so he decided it was safe enough to draw closer. "I won't be barred from entering anywhere in my own home," he replied bluntly. "And besides…as much as he tried, I thought you might have wanted the pleasure of killing me, as you so often mention."

Cassie gave a quiet snort, even though she didn't move. "Is this you saying you're sorry?" she asked, her voice still heavily laden with sleep.

"This is me asking how emotionally stable you are at the moment," Herbert said hesitantly, drawing up to the side of the bed.

"I'm nauseous and screwing a mad scientist and potential slasher who's been talking to the dad I've been looking for practically all my life without telling me," she said, putting her head back down. "I'm just great."

"I see," he replied in acknowledgement. "May I?"

She looked over her shoulder to see him gesture towards the bed. "It's your house, isn't it?" she asked.

They exchanged a glance and Cassie rolled her eyes. She gave another sleepy snort and moved over, giving him room to sit down on the edge of the bed. "Oh no," she said. "If you're gonna do this, do it right. Spoon."

She didn't have to look over at him to see the irritated glare and look of confusion playing on his face. "Consider it your punishment," said Cassie.

He continued to stare at her. "Would you prefer I got up and pistol-whipped you? Lay the fuck down!" she snapped. "You act like I'm asking you to cut out your own heart or something."

He sighed in exasperation, but she felt the bed shift and eventually felt a stiff arm curl itself around her waist and an equally uncomfortable body mold itself behind her. He was holding her in a way that made her feel as if he didn't want to touch her, but that was too bad – considering what he did for a hobby, he could stand to lay there and apologize in some form to the woman who more or less put up with all his bullshit.

Herbert on the other hand, just wanted to get the hell out of there. He was trying to win her back as an ally, that was true – she _was_ useful in a sense, but he mainly just wanted to get the hell out of the room.

"You might wanna be careful," she said flatly. "Touching the woman you've had sex with before makes your skin fall off."

Apparently, she noticed his discomfort and Herbert had to allow himself to relax a little bit. He had to remind himself that it was still far better than being held down on an autopsy table by a pack of re-animates who intended to lobotomize him.

Unlike the dead subjects he was used to, Cassie was warm, more so than usual due to her being half-asleep and wrapped in that idiotic blanket, and even though her sarcasm wasn't gone, her wit was somewhat dulled, which allowed him a little leeway where verbal sparring was concerned. If he stayed there any longer, he was pretty sure more stupid thoughts would come to mind, and it was all the more reason to get this over with.

"Are you still angry with me?" he asked finally.

"You bet your ass," said Cassie. "You've been talking to my dad _and_ I feel nauseous…that's two strikes against you, pal."

"I'm not surprised about the latter," he replied. "Considering what you eat on occasion, I wouldn't be surprised if…"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked blearily, falling back into oblivion.

"You and Vlad have eaten out of fast food dumpsters, yes?" he asked curtly.

"…Once or twice," Cassie admitted.

"And you wonder why you're nauseous?" Herbert asked.

"I hope you're right," she said, her consciousness becoming more and more abstract. "I'd hate to be pregnant to you."

When his head shot up, Cassie burst into sardonic laughter, but if he had ever seriously considered killing her, this was the time. "Sorry!" she said, her tone much lighter. "But you so deserved that."


	17. Classified Break

"Cassie, what are you doing?" Herbert asked firmly, not at all pleased with her hovering behind him nor with her close proximity.

"Oh, I dunno," she purred against his ear, nipping it. "Trying to have sex with you maybe?"

"Not what I called you here for," he replied.

She sighed. "And here I thought there was a reason for calling me when I was almost halfway across the country!" she said dryly, coming around to his side. "What did you call me for?"

"I needed your help again," said Herbert, nodding towards the cadaver lying on the table.

"You couldn't have called Dan?" she asked.

"Dan and I aren't speaking at the moment," said Herbert. "And that's why it had to be you. Have you sent Vlad off for the night?"

"Yeah," she said skeptically. "Why aren't you and Dan speaking again?"

"It's not important," he said quickly. "But this is good – it'll give me time to assess the subject without any interference from Vlad."

"He didn't mean to get in the way last time, you know" Cassie defended. "He thought you were hurting me."

"I do hurt you," Herbert said matter-of-factly as he filled a syringe with re-agent. "Only when you ask."

"Ooh, look at you, cracking the sex joke," she chided, taking up her bat and readying herself for the reanimated chaos that would ensue. "I'm impressed. So…what are you gonna do with this guy?"

"I haven't perfected it yet, but if my theories are correct, then I will be able to restore life with the re-agent, and then conscious thought through nano-plasmic energy," he said.

"NPE?" Cassie asked, hoping he would go for the abbreviation so she didn't have to remember the actual word. "You mean you figured out how to hold onto something like that?"

"Precisely. However, your assistance in the matter will be greatly appreciated if anything goes wrong," said Herbert. "Even though it took you long enough to get back here."

"Hm," Cassie said distantly, examining the body as she walked around the table. "It looks like nothing's gonna be able to assist him; his jaw's been ripped off. How did that happen?"

"Again, not important," said Herbert, positioning the needle at the base of the corpse's neck and injecting it carefully. "I'm going to need you to hold him down while I prepare the electro-shock equipment, so keep the bat close by, but…"

"I'm not holding that thing down!" said Cassie. "You shouldn't even be bringing him back in the first place – if he everything works out like you say it will, how's he gonna survive?"

"He will more or less have to adapt to it. Re-animates are surprisingly durable in that sense," said Herbert, pulling the needle out and glancing down at the body. "Now if you don't mind…!"

Before he got a chance to finish, the corpse sat up, tongue waggling and struck Cassie across the face with its flailing fist, knocking her to the ground. Not wasting any time, he turned around and decided that he should keep his gun in a place where he could find it, because it didn't seem to be hanging anywhere on the coat rack.

Not that it mattered much when the re-animate had a firm grip on his throat.

Cassie peeled herself up off the floor and smashed it in the back of the head with her bat, but all that seemed to do was anger the creature further and caused it to grab her by the throat as well and lift her up.

Herbert had always known Cassie had a hard head – that was a given, but never had he wanted to experience it first hand in the form of having his own skull cracked against hers.

He didn't know how long he'd been out when he found himself being shaken awake by a rather nervous-looking Cassie. His head was killing him and looking at her, he knew hers must have been hurting too, since it was bleeding a little more than his.

"Where's the subject?" he asked, trying to feign consciousness.

"I don't know, I just woke up too," said Cassie. "You okay?"

"We have to find it," he said, standing up. "Can you walk?"

Cassie pulled herself up as well and took up the bat again. "More like run," she said. "Let's go."

Finding the front door open and broken out once they got to the top of the stairs wasn't a good sign. He exchanged a glance with Cassie and to his surprise, she was the first one out the door, ready to attack anything that moved. He decided he liked that violent quality in her at the moment.

What he found he didn't like on the other hand was not being able to find her about an hour later while wandering through the graveyard and realizing that she was his only means of protection since he hadn't remembered to bring a weapon of his own. He had an extra hypo of re-agent – that was it.

Calling out for her was his first inclination, but that would draw unwanted attention to him from either the new neighbors with the irritating kids a little ways off or from the re-animate itself. Neither of which seemed very attractive, so he was reduced to hissing out her name as loudly as he could, looking around desperately for her, but to no avail. She was off hunting and probably wouldn't remember him until she'd killed the prey in question. He tried to think of what Dan might tell him in this situation, but then he realized Dan wouldn't put himself in this situation by getting involved with a woman like Cassie. Herbert was on his own.

Not that it mattered when screaming echoed from the neighbor's house. Wherever the screaming was, the re-animate was, and that probably meant Cassie too.

But before he'd even arrived there, he was being seized up by police – not for murder or for the presence of a jawless man in someone's house, but for _wandering a graveyard while slightly bloody_. And there was nothing he could do about it.

As his arms were being forced behind his back, he looked over and noticed Cassie ducking behind a gravestone, moving to come out with her bat in hand. He shot her a quick glare and shook his head, knowing they'd seize her up too if they saw her at all, let alone with a deadly weapon. They'd probably charge her with _wandering a graveyard while wearing too much makeup_, he thought grimly, just as they steered him away.

In retrospect, if he'd have known that was the last time he was going to see her for a while, he would have acquiesced to her advances earlier.


	18. Two Massacres and a Prison Riot

Thirteen years and some prison-related chaos later, Herbert was somewhat surprised to learn that Cassie Hack was still an easy woman to find. All he'd had to do was follow the trail of bodies and sure enough, he found her somewhere outside of Illinois.

He hadn't known what to expect when he'd come knocking on her hotel room door and was slightly apprehensive about the fact that Vlad was the one to answer it. For someone he'd always pegged as dumb, Herbert could see by the look on Vlad's face that the big ape knew what was going on and didn't appreciate Herbert's presence one little bit.

But instead of slamming the door, Vlad quietly grunted and stepped aside, allowing Herbert in. "_Huurrh…Cassie…you have visitor, yes_?" Vlad called into the small bathroom, where steam was pouring out from under the door.

The string of curses that followed from behind the bathroom door made Herbert smile just a little, even though he wouldn't admit it. Ever.

The bathroom door slammed against the wall as it opened, and Cassie stumbled out in the only way she could, practically frothing at the mouth and precariously wrapped in a towel. "Tell them to wait a minute for crissakes!" she ranted, absently toweling her hair dry. "If it's that whiner that survived, explain to her that if I don't finish my shower, I get cranky and if I get cranky, I get…"

"Hello, Cassie," said Herbert, hoping her bad temper wasn't going to have a target to focus on.

For a woman who'd spent most of her life fighting, he had to admit she looked good. There were more scars along her arms and legs than he remembered, but for the most part she looked the same – sans the black makeup, which he wasn't altogether pleased to see. He didn't know why, so he attributed it to the slight obsessive-compulsive disorder everyone wanted to diagnose him with.

Her eyes were locked with his and the glare was a good sign; this probably meant he wasn't going to get killed.

Behind him he heard the doorknob turn and Vlad grunt as he pulled his gas mask on. Cassie looked past Herbert with a look of slight terror. "Where are you going?" she asked. "You don't have to go, you can just…"

"_Vlad get ice, yes? Want anything from the vending machine?"_

"Nah, I'm good," said Cassie. "West?"

Herbert quietly shook his head, wondering what all this really meant. He was mainly just hoping Vlad didn't return with meat cleavers in hand the second the door slammed behind him.

Cassie sighed and walked past him, and sat down on the edge of one of the beds, adjusting her towel and flicking wet hair out of her eyes. She slapped the space next to her. "Sit," she ordered.

Normally he would have picked a fight with her over her ordering him around like a dog, but now it seemed rather pointless and he was too goddamn tired. He eased himself down next to her and they sat there for a few minutes, neither looking at each other and staring at the worn old carpet of the room.

"So," Cassie said finally. "…Wanna tell me why you're here?"

"Is it that important?" he asked.

"I dunno. Did people die?" she asked dryly.

"Prison riot," he replied promptly.

"Oh," said Cassie. "Did you cause it?"

"No," said Herbert. "…Perhaps. I'm uncertain of the exact cause of it, but the re-agent was definitely involved. I simply took advantage of the situation."

"Now that part doesn't surprise me," said Cassie. "How'd you do it?"

He reached into his shirt pocket and produced Howard's security badge, handing it over to her. "Hmm…and this Howard Phillips…you didn't kill him, did you?" she asked, turning it over in her hands. " 'Cause if you did, then you know I have to…"

"The only person I killed was the warden and for good reason, since he sexually assaulted and murdered a female reporter whose body they'd brought into me only moments before," said Herbert. "You would have done the same thing."

"Oh," she replied again, handing the badge back to him. "Well that's understandable. What'd you use? Shanking knife?"

"No, microscope," said Herbert. "Mostly, anyway. I did have to electrocute him twice, however. That was a bit difficult."

"I'd guess so," said Cassie. "But what about Howard?"

"He was my assistant for a while, but his…extracurricular interests got the best of him and probably drove him insane. I didn't stick around long enough to find out."

"Assistant?" Cassie asked. "As in Dan 2.0?"

"Please," said Herbert, wincing. "Don't even mention that name."

Cassie sighed, nodding. "Right," she said. "…I met up with him shortly after your trial, you know."

"Why?" Herbert asked.

Cassie rolled her eyes, looking at him as if he were insane. "To find out why he fucked you over the way he did!" she said. "Of course! …Anyway, he wouldn't tell me anything…he just said that you were really sick and needed some help. That you needed that place to protect you from yourself."

"Not surprising," said Herbert.

Cassie nodded in agreement. "I kicked him in the balls for you," she said.

"You did?"

"Yeah," said Cassie. "Figured it was the least I could do. Plus, I never really paid him back for walking in on us that one time. Vlad thought it was hilarious."

He nodded as the silence returned and it made them both squirm. Herbert because he couldn't remember at the moment why he'd gone to the trouble of finding her in the first place (especially after the whole Howard and Laura debacle) and Cassie because she hadn't expected to see him ever again.

"…Kinda missed you," Cassie said quietly.

"Mm,"

"Now that I didn't miss," she said flatly, looking at him slyly. "Getting that for a reply is liable to piss anybody off. If I were a prison guard, I'd have thrown you in the hole already."

"It's a bit late for that," said Herbert. "And as it turns out, solitary confinement isn't nearly as dreadful as they lead you to believe. I did some of my best work in there."

Cassie burst out laughing, yet he failed to see the humor in it since solitary had really been the least of his problems during his stay. And here he'd thought that perhaps she'd matured a little over time.

"So two massacres and a prison riot," she said finally, putting an arm around his shoulders and smiling. "Looking good so far."

"As opposed to all of the people you've gotten killed?" he asked.

"Well you got me there," said Cassie, touching her forehead to his shoulder affectionately. "But my problem is that I can't ever kill the slashers fast enough. Your problems are still too convoluted to pinpoint."

"I beg to differ," said Herbert.

She rolled her eyes and stood up, making sure her towel didn't fall off in the process and leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead. "You can stay here tonight," she said, moving back into the bathroom. "I'm gonna go get some clothes on, okay?"

"That would be greatly appreciated," Herbert called after her dryly.

"Pfft," she said. "You lie."

A/N: I have a question. Should there be some more filth next time around? I'm almost done with these, so I figured before the blood, guts, and tempers come back out, maybe, but I dunno.


	19. Trapping A Slasher Pt 1

"Can I ask what the relevance of this is exactly?" Herbert asked, sick at the very thought of the place he was in.

Even though Dan had tried to convince him in the past, singles clubs were the last place on Earth Herbert ever wanted to be in and if he were to list the reasons why, the list would probably take him until the end of his life to complete. At the moment however, the deafening music and obnoxious flashing lights were right at the top of the list.

"People are dying all over the club circuit in the area," said Cassie, shrugging and wiping off the bar she was standing behind. "Did you check out the bodies at the morgue?"

When he'd agreed to come with her and Vlad until he found a suitable place to continue his work on the re-agent, he hadn't realized that that meant getting involved with her lifelong suicide mission. If he weren't so bored with sitting in the back of her van and confining his thoughts to a notebook, he would never have gone along with it, but it had already provided him with new research material. Although, he wasn't about to tell her that he'd tested a different re-agent solution on some of them. The end result had been enough to make even him feel slightly nauseous.

"Yes," he said curtly, leaning forward on the bar. "They all have the same wounds in common – cause of death was a severe chemical burn. Probably acid."

"Uh-huh," Cassie replied dryly, nodding her head. "Acid Angel, I knew it."

"That sounds like a comic book character," said Herbert, unable to believe that he'd somehow been roped into this.

"And she dresses like one. Providing she's wearing anything at all and not spitting acid all over the place," said Cassie, putting a glass down in front of him and pouring something in it. "Drink up."

He looked down at the glass and then back up at her as if to ask, "What the hell are you thinking? Do you seriously think I want to touch _anything_ in here, let alone alcohol?"

"It's okay," she said in a quieter voice. "It's just ginger ale. I've been throwing them back all night."

There was a scream behind them and the subsequent flying of a body overhead before it crashed into a table of very surprised blonde girls. Herbert blinked and turned back to Cassie. "At least Vlad's having fun," she said, shrugging again. "What about you?"

"I've never felt more ridiculous in my entire life," he said bitterly. "I was too old for these places when I was a teenager."

"Well it can't be much longer," said Cassie, sliding a beer down to a patron sitting at the opposite end of the bar. "I'm hoping the double A'll pick up another victim tonight, that way we can slaughter her again and move on."

"Again?" Herbert asked. "As in you've killed her before?"

"Well yeah!" said Cassie, nodding to someone who rather rudely requested a bourbon. "What'd you think slashers do after we kill them? That's the reason why there's so many bad horror movie sequels out there."

"You mustn't have killed her well enough then," said Herbert. "What's the point of killing them in the first place if they're just going to get back up again?"

Cassie handed the rude customer his drink over Herbert's shoulder and shook her head at him. "What's the point of bringing back dead people if they're just gonna get up and try to rip your face off?" she asked. "I dunno, but it keeps the body count of the country down for a little while. Just lemme know if any hot blonde chicks come onto you tonight."

"The only place I'm going once this conversation is over is back to the hotel," said Herbert. "I've wasted enough time here, and what's the significance of…"

Cassie shook her head again. "Acid Angel's whole schtick is that she finds some idiot, gets them all excited about the great sex they're gonna have, and the minute she gets turned on enough, she spits acid in their face," she said. "So if a blonde comes onto you, run."

Herbert blinked at her and stood up. "I've had enough of this," he said. "You and Vlad can more than handle this on your own. I will see you later tonight, if you somehow manage to survive. Goodbye."

"Hold on, wait, wait, wait!" Cassie said quickly, darting around from behind her post and catching him by the wrist.

He rolled his eyes and inwardly groaned as she put her arms around his neck. "I go on break in about fifteen minutes," she said, looking at him hopefully.

"Good," said Herbert. "I'm happy for you. Now get off me."

"Come on," said Cassie, grinning at him. "Doesn't a little part of you love making all these droolers in here jealous?"

Though it was true that a lot of the men at the bar looked either disgusted or disappointed, Herbert couldn't have been less concerned since the pulsating atmosphere was making his head feel like it were in a vice. In fact, it hadn't felt right since Warden Brando beat him down during the riot.

"If I were of lower intelligence, then perhaps I would," he said, trying to disentangle himself from her. "But thankfully, I've evolved a little more since you saw me last."

Cassie cocked an eyebrow at him and gave him that wolfish smirk that meant whatever he had in mind for the evening was about to be put on hold or completely forgotten whatsoever as she pulled back and grabbed his tie, yanking him towards a sorry little corridor that was pitch black and relatively empty. "There's an employee bathroom with a lock on it," said Cassie. "If A.A. shows up, Vlad's on his own."

"And here I'd thought you'd matured," Herbert replied irritably.

"I did," said Cassie. "But I'm a thirty-three year old woman with bloodlust and needs and the latter I don't have to wait for, so move it."

A/N: Next chap sex and violence will ensue. Probably together and before the slasher starts with the real violence.


	20. Trapping a Slasher Pt 2

The minute Cassie locked the bathroom door, the first thing Herbert found her doing was slamming his back up against it and mashing her mouth to his. It seemed he had forgotten over the years that receiving a kiss from her was more or less like receiving a headbutt if one wasn't prepared for it.

He yelped in pain as his head went back and his hand went to his bottom lip, which was then bleeding. Cassie being completely useless of course, gasped.

"I'm sorry!" she said quickly, trying to sound apologetic. "I thought that since that's the way we always did it, you wouldn't mind! Here, lemme see!"

"I always mind!" Herbert shot back, wiping the blood away. "And there's no point in letting you see, since there'd be nothing you could do about it in the first place!"

A sly smirk spread over her face as he pushed past her to get to the sink, tossing his glasses onto the counter top as he did so. "Geez, Doc," she said, putting a hand on her hip, sidling up beside him as he rinsed the blood off. "…You never complained that much about it before."

Herbert didn't answer her as he huffily turned the sink off and began struggling with the paper towel dispenser. Cassie on the other hand, tried a different way to get a rise out of him. "You know, I like these better than your old ones," she said, picking up his glasses and examining him. "These kinda remind me of Clark Kent…although I'm sure you don't even know anything about comics, huh?"

He turned around to see her slide them on and stare at him as innocently as she possibly could. "Give me those," he said irritably, tossing the paper towel away.

"Why?" Cassie asked, giggling lightly. "Afraid I'm gonna take advantage of you and your poor eyesight?"

"Ms. Hack," he warned.

She snorted and slid the glasses off, handing them back to him. Then she hopped up on the counter next to the sink and beckoned to him. "Want me to kiss it better?" she asked dryly.

He glared at her, causing her to roll her eyes and hold her arms out to him again. "I'm sorry, okay?" she asked. "Now come on – show me what you learned on the inside."

Neither of them would ever be able to figure out what prompted him to suddenly grab her by the shoulders and slam her up against the mirror so angrily and hard enough to break the glass. Cassie wasn't surprised exactly, but she definitely liked it when he fought back.

"Do you think that's funny?" he hissed, bringing his face close to hers, his grip undoubtedly leaving marks on Cassie's shoulders. "Insinuating that I might have been…"

Cassie shoved him hard, pushing him away from her as she looked at him from heavy-lidded eyes. "Oh I think that's hilarious," she said casually. "I guess this means it must be true, huh?"

"Completely the opposite," Herbert replied bitterly, shoving her legs apart roughly. "How do you think I ended up in solitary?"

"I dunno," said Cassie, biting him hard and rather close to his jugular as she put her arms around his neck. "Do I want to find out?"

"I killed a man who tried to sexually assault me with his own pen. After that, none of them deemed to bother me in that manner again," said Herbert as his hands moved up her skirt to do away with any hindrances in the way of undergarments. "Are you going to dispatch me now like you so often promise?"

Cassie gasped as his fingers grazed her. "Not if you keep doing that," she said smugly. "How'd you manage it?"

"What?" he asked, looking up at her.

"The shank," she said, before her head went back and uncomfortably hit the mirror again.

"You think I never watched you?" Herbert replied casually.

"Huh?" Cassie asked, barely listening.

Before he could answer her, screams conglomerated outside as a panic rose up, leaving Cassie to groan as Herbert pulled away from her, as if remembering that he was normally a woman-resenting, science-minded sponge with no friends or sexual relations whatsoever.

"Dammit, Angel, couldn't you have waited a half-hour before going on a rampage?" she whined to herself as she hopped off the sink and straightened her clothing.

The door burst open and Vlad stepped through, wearing his gas mask and tossing Cassie her bat. "How'd you know I was in here?" she asked.

"_Cassie have Dr. West now, yes?_" said Vlad. "_Vlad already check on Cassie once to make sure little one's not hurt."_

Cassie sighed, smiling despite herself. "I don't even wanna know how you managed that," she said, shaking her head before turning to Herbert.

"Go back to the hotel, okay?" she said, grabbing his tie and pulling him in close before pecking him on the mouth and engaging in very practiced speed-talk. "I'm gonna need you later – either to sew me up or to do things I can't quite label by name with Vlad here. Hopefully it'll be the latter, but you know – expect the first one. I have a habit of burning these kinds of places down when I fight in them, so…good luck getting out alive!"

He would have asked her what any of that meant, but before he could, she was gone with Vlad close behind and he found himself with a very convenient opportunity for a re-agent test when it collapsed in the same alley he happened to be escaping in.

Cassie didn't have to know; he had far more important things to tell her later anyway.


	21. Stitches

Cassie hissed in pain and gripped the pillow she was holding to her bare chest a little tighter. "You know," she said. "When I was trying to get you to penetrate me, this wasn't what I was talking about."

Herbert dabbed at the half-sewn gash on the back of her shoulder with a cotton ball. "Perhaps you should be more careful," he said clinically. "Is that why Vlad didn't follow you back here?"

They were sitting on one of the beds in the room, and had she not been bleeding so profusely, Herbert probably would have at least made her wait a while before treating her.

"I _was_ being careful," said Cassie. "It was the panicking dickwad who stabbed me with a broken beer bottle that wasn't."

"What did you do to anger him?" Herbert asked.

"Nothing!" said Cassie. "He was trying to push me out of the way! He sees one big-boobed slutbag spit acid on a couple of his friends and all of a sudden, he's attacking everything with breasts! Not my fault he's a dumbass."

"I see," Herbert said distastefully. "And I suppose you'll want me to see to Vlad's injuries as well?"

"Well if you put it that way!" she retorted dryly. "And no, Vlad actually got lucky this time. Usually he's the one with all the holes."

She gasped as he jabbed her uncomfortably with the needle. "Dammit!" she said. "I'm afraid to see what you're doing back there – are you actually _trying_ to make it worse, because if you are, all I have to do is…"

"Don't be absurd," he snapped.

"All I'm saying is, thirteen years. That's a lot of time," said Cassie.

"Granted, but I promise you that as far as sutures go, I'm perfectly capable of…" Herbert interjected.

"Okay, whatever," said Cassie. "I'm just hoping I don't have more sewn shut than I ought to back there."

"The only other thing I'm considering sewing shut is your mouth," said Herbert.

"Mmm, but you like my mouth," said Cassie.

"You have no evidence of that," he replied, cutting the thread off.

"No _tangible _evidence," she corrected, standing up and walking over to the bathroom mirror to check over his work. "But I know you better than that."

She turned back to him, giving him a rather predatory look that made him roll his eyes. "Admit it," she said, drawing closer. "You like patchy-looking girls."

"Patchy?" he asked.

"Living dead girl in your basement?" she replied sardonically as she put her arms around his neck.

"She wasn't for me, she was for Dan," said Herbert. "And put your top back on, lest you want Vlad to worry."

"It's nothing he's never seen before," she said, shaking her head. "And besides…he knows. I haven't seen you in a while…and while Georgia's fun and all; I love her, I seriously do, but…she ain't as difficult as you are."

"I am not interested in any sexual activity with you, nor am I interested in tending to my own wounds once Vlad sees you in this position," said Herbert. "Let go."

"That's not what you were saying earlier," she said, straddling him and sucking on his pulse point.

"A momentary lapse of judgment, but it is passed, said Herbert. "Let go."

"You know," she said against his ear. "Most men would be turned on by a topless chick sitting in their lap."

"If you're so keen on the idea, then I suggest you call your friend Georgia," said Herbert.

"Jealous?" she asked.

"Not in the least," said Herbert.

"It's been thirteen years," said Cassie. "You don't think I'd go that long ever again, do you?"

"So I suppose when it comes to selective breeding, you don't know the meaning of the word," he said sordidly, trying to fidget away from her.

"Nah," she said, shaking her head. "I don't want kids. That oughta be obvious since Georgia's a _girl_, and as far as you go, I just like you. No idea why, but whatever."

"Not what I'm talking about," said Herbert.

"Georgia knows about you," said Cassie. "She even wanted to meet you at one point – I told her you were a miserable prick."

"Not a murdering bastard?" he asked, mildly surprised.

"I figured she'd take that one as a given," said Cassie, pulling back to look at him. "Now c'mon – are you gonna fuck me or what?"

He sternly looked up at her, recognizing that "I win" smile plastered on her face – it was the same one she gave him thirteen years ago, only with a few faint lines here and there.

"I'm not leaving with you tomorrow morning, you know," he said. "I've decided to continue my work here."

She smiled wider, completely genuine and not at all dissuaded from her pursuit. "I figured as much," she said brightly, patting him on the shoulder. "That's good. Good for you."

"You're not going to warn me or try to regulate me?" he asked. "Try to tell me that my work is immoral?"

"Nope!" said Cassie, kissing him on the forehead. "I figure we're both too old for that, and it's nothing you've never heard before. Plus, if you aren't careful and something happens, they'll cart your ass back to prison. I don't have to bother."

"You never did," he pointed out.

"I know!" said Cassie. "See? Ain't it great how that worked out?"

"What are you trying to tell me, Hack?" he asked bitterly.

"Nothing important, but if you're done talking, do you mind?" she asked, shrugging.

"I most certainly do," he retorted, but his resolve was starting to sound less forceful when she roughly shoved him onto his back.

"Then it's a good thing I don't," she said, pinning his wrists down when he went to shove her away. "I'm topping tonight. Don't think I can lay on my back with this."

In Herbert's opinion, he didn't think worse words could exist. Or at least, that's what he would tell her later.


	22. Dead Things End

Cassie Hack generally didn't encourage breaking and entering into someone's home, but when Herbert West didn't answer his door, she knew it would be an exception to the rule. Now that she'd broken in, she was sorry she decided to come and see him in the first place, because while she'd left him behind in Chicago a few months ago and had expected some fresh chaos, she hadn't expected what was standing in front of her.

"P-Perhaps he ought to have doubled the dosage…side effects are…questionable," he sputtered, staggering towards her as if he had no control of his limbs whatsoever.

"Herbert, what the hell are you talking about?" Cassie asked warily, slowly backing away from him.

Thirteen years in prison had already made him look different from how she remembered him, but now there was nothing left to suggest this was the man she'd visited on and off for so long. His skin was turning gray around the edges and the green color had bled away from his eyes, leaving them a pale grayish blue while thick blood inexplicably dribbled down his chin.

He screamed and doubled over in pain briefly before righting himself again "I don't know anymore!" he sputtered, whining and gagging on something in his throat and looking around wildly. "I…I can't remember anything I say after a few minutes…an interesting side effect, but it hurts so bad! It's so bad…"

She decided she didn't want to know how he finally died, but she was willing to place bets on the enormous naked corpse lying decapitated in the corner and the huge bruise on Herbert's neck suggesting that it had been snapped in the last eighteen hours.

"Who brought you back?" she asked, reaching behind her to pull the gun out of the waistband of her skirt. "Who injected you?"

"My new assistant," he said, nudging his head towards the corner of the basement. "J-Just like I instructed him to…"

Cassie allowed her eyes to drift to the area but fixed them back on Herbert once she saw that the assistant was in pieces and that all the blood on the floor might have belonged to him. "Whose NPE did he give you?" she asked, trying to distract him long enough.

"…A…Another man's," said Herbert, drawing closer to her. "O-Or maybe it was a woman's, I can't be sure…it would explain my being overemotional…"

He was cut off by another bout of convulsions and screaming, this time falling to the floor because of the pain. She took a slow step towards him, but his head whipped up in her direction, glaring at her. "I know what you're trying to do!" he screamed, his voice not quite sounding like his own.

Where most women would have gasped or screamed, Cassie simply nodded in acknowledgement and brought the gun out from behind her back. She knelt down in front of him, vaguely hoping that there was still enough Herbert left in there to keep him from flipping out and biting her face off, but mainly just to be straight with him. "You know I have to," she said, striving for a gentle tone. "You can't function like this and you know it."

"J-Just give it time…you'll see," he persisted.

"Nope," said Cassie, shaking her head. "I don't think so…you're dead, Herbert."

She'd once thought it would be hard to shatter everything a person ever believed in, but now that she had to do it, it wasn't all that difficult. Making a sandwich was harder.

She didn't know if Herbert was doubled over and groaning because he didn't want to hear what she had to say or if it was the fact that being dead was painful – either way, she reached out and rested her free hand on his back, rubbing it.

"I'll tell Dan," she offered. "…I'll let him know…if you want. Maybe he'll even want to…I dunno, continue the work or something."

"And let him take credit for it?" Herbert spat, before the pain overtook him again.

"I don't think he would do that," said Cassie.

"YOU DON'T KNOW!" he screamed, his body shaking as he tried to lash out at her, but luckily his quickly stiffening limbs prevented it.

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "You're right...forget I mentioned it."

He gasped, tumbling forward into her lap and Cassie allowed it, seeing as she couldn't be too harsh with him in this situation. "Ah…rigor mortis," he said. "…Note that I'm the first reanimated subject to exhibit…"

He was cut off again, and Cassie held still for it. She didn't know what else to say to him. He had been her friend and yet he wasn't her friend, even though they'd had a relationship that was more physical than anything else. She wasn't close to him like she was Vlad and she certainly didn't love him, at least not in the same way that she loved Georgia. Come to think of it, she didn't think anyone would ever have been capable of loving Herbert West. He was simply too unlovable, but seeing him in agony like this did funny things to her stomach. Like if she didn't get this over with soon she wouldn't be able to do it.

"…If I could move, I would try to stop you," he said quietly against her collarbone, whimpering under his breath.

"Oh, I know," said Cassie, keeping her eyes fixed on the blood-spattered wall in front of her, rather than on him. "I even saw a shovel on the way down here. I should feel lucky."

Even though the statement had been meant as a joke, neither of them were laughing, Herbert because he couldn't and Cassie because she was still trying to place how she would remember him. Somehow, sitting on a bloody basement floor with him whining and convulsing in pain didn't seem to do him justice, despite him being the pathetic, hateful prick that he was.

"I'm gonna miss you," she said finally.

His neck cracked as he looked up at her with what she guessed was confusion. "Stop…talking about me….as if I'm already dead!" he choked out, his voice still not sounding like his own.

"I'm sorry," she said.

She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead, just like she always did, only this time it felt clammy and cold. "But you are,"

The first bullet only pushed him out of her lap, but it took the entire clip to finally kill him. Again. And even then, Cassie couldn't be sure, because as she left the old house, she thought she could still feel the corpse watching her as she left the basement.

A/N: So that's the end of this weirdness, at least on . If you're crazy enough to want other somewhat unrelated drabbles on these two, my livejournal account is a good place to look.


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